[norwaypinesavage]

"They say the technology is still five to 10 years away from commercialization, but working in their favor is the safety of the battery, which poses no risk of fire."

Fire? Maybe not. Explosion? Likely!

I remember a demonstration of Sodium back in my 7th grade science class. The sodium was held inside a container filled with kerosene. Why kerosene? Because the Sodium had an explosive reaction when brought in contact with water. The instructor, who happened to have a PhD in real science, not education, demonstrated this by dropping a tiny piece of the sodium into a water bath so we could see this. It was quite impressive.

So, if you want to have large quantities of liquid sodium at temperatures over 600 degrees F (hot enough to ignite paper on contact), and explosive when contacting water, it better be miles away from me.

[kosciusko51]

It is not pure sodium, but a sodium salt. You can mix this salt in water and it will dissolve without an explosive reaction.