Officials have announced that Kemmerer, population 2,600, will be the site of a plant featuring a liquid sodium-cooled reactor //

The high heat-transfer properties of sodium will allow the Natrium plant to be air-cooled. That will enable the plant to be quickly shut down in case of an emergency, and the absence of emergency generators and pumps will save on costs, Levesque said.

Others are skeptical about the benefits of sodium compared with water for cooling as in conventional nuclear plants.

“The use of liquid sodium has many problems. It’s a very volatile material that can catch fire if it’s exposed to air or water,” said Edwin Lyman, director of nuclear power safety with the Union of Concerned Scientists science advocacy non-profit.