DÜSSELDORF (dpa-AFX) - Even after Germany's last three nuclear power plants shut down on April 15, a German company will continue to produce nuclear power. Uniper, the energy company nationalized in the wake of the gas crisis, has stakes in three nuclear power plants in Sweden, and is a majority shareholder in one of them. "Uniper has 1.4 gigawatts of attributable nuclear capacity in Sweden, which obtains about 40 percent of its electricity from nuclear power," the Düsseldorf-based company's website says. 1.4 gigawatts (1400 megawatts) is equivalent to the gross capacity of RWE's Emsland nuclear power plant, which is about to be shut down.

"There are no plans to divest nuclear power plants in Sweden," a Uniper spokesman told Deutsche Presse-Agentur in response to a query. "Uniper is a reliable operator of its nuclear power plants in Sweden and does everything to ensure safe operation," the spokesman said.

Uniper is currently planning to build an electric, non-nuclear research and test facility at the Oskarshamn nuclear power plant site, with construction set to begin next year, he said. The project will be carried out in cooperation with the company Blykalla and the Royal Institute of Technology, he said. The research facility will focus on testing materials and components for a new type of reactor, called a Small Modular Reactor (SMR).

The goal is to develop a reactor "that can continue to supply fossil-free electricity to industry and society in a stable, cost-effective and climate-friendly way," according to a Uniper info page.

"What differentiates an SMR from large nuclear power plants today is that it can deliver the same amount of stable and fossil-free electricity as today, but is more flexible and takes up less space." The concept, he said, is that the components would be prefabricated and transported to the site. There, they would be assembled like a "do-it-yourself kit." Because of serial production, the cost and time required to build an SMR would be much less than for a large nuclear power plant, he said. Uniper's plans in Sweden had previously been reported in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.

The German Institute for Economic Research (DIW) recently expressed its disapproval of SMR plants, which are understood to be reactors with an electrical output of up to 300 megawatts. SMR concepts are not mature and will not be available in the foreseeable future, according to a study. They were old reactor concepts that had not become established because of economic disadvantages due to the lower outputs.

"Further, they remain radiologically hazardous because the problems of increased transport and interim storage of radioactive waste would multiply." Despite decades of research, he said, hardly any nuclear power plants in the SMR category have been able to begin commercial power operations. Even assuming optimistic conditions, he said, a cost-competitive bid cannot be assumed./tob/DP/zb