July 17 (Bloomberg) -- German Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel said he aims to persuade the country's four biggest utilities to shut older nuclear reactors sooner than planned after accidents at two separate sites last month.

Newer reactors could gain capacity if accident-prone older plants were shut ahead of schedule, Gabriel said on national radio today. He plans to meet the chief executives of Vattenfall Europe AG, E.ON AG, RWE AG and Energie Baden-Wuerttemberg AG as early as next month to discuss his plan.

Germany in 2000 under then Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder passed a law to phase-out nuclear power by about 2021. Current Chancellor Angela Merkel said on July 3 that Germany may review the planned closure, though not before the next election in 2009. Utilities say they want to switch capacity from newer to older sites in the hope that after 2009 they may be allowed to extend the life of older sites whose licenses are running out.

``What we need is exactly the opposite -- shutting down earlier older reactors that cause us constant difficulties,'' Gabriel, a Social Democrat, told Deutschlandfunk Radio in an interview.

The closure of all nuclear plants was agreed under Schroeder's Social Democrat-led government. The Social Democrats are now junior partners to Merkel's Christian Democrats in the coalition government.

Concerns about the safety of Germany's 17 reactors have grown after a fire at Vattenfall's Kruemmel site on June 28 and a network fault at its Brunsbuettel plant occurred on the same day.

`Politically Motivated'

Hamburg-based Vattenfall spokesman Ivo Banek said on July 13 that criticism of the company has been ``mostly politically motivated.'' Vattenfall doesn't plan to change its strategy or reconsider its bid to operate its Brunsbuettel nuclear plant longer than currently permitted, he said.

Vattenfall applied to the government in March for approval to extend the life of its Brunsbuettel reactor until 2011 from 2009.

Legislation passed in 2000 that sets out Germany's nuclear phase-out allows utilities to transfer capacity from older to newer reactors, Environment Ministry spokesman Tobias Duenow said in an interview.

Below is a table of the estimated remaining capacity and phase-out dates of Germany's remaining 17 reactors.

Reactor Capacity in 2000 Capacity 07-31-2006 Shutdown

In Terawatt Hours In Terawatt Hours

Biblis A 62 14 2008 Biblis B 81 26 2009 Brunsbuettel 47 16 2009 Neckarwestheim-1 57 17 2009 Isar- 1 78 34 2011 Philippsburg- 1 87 38 2012 Unterweser 117 56 2012 Grafenrheinfeld 150 84 2015 Gundremmingen-B 160 94 2016 Gundremmingen-C 168 103 2016 Kruemmel 158 97 2016 Grohnde 200 129 2018 Philippsburg-2 198 129 2018 Brokdorf 217 144 2020 Isar-2 231 155 2020 Emsland 230 157 2021 Neckarwestheim-2 236 166 2022

Total 2,623 1,580

Source: Federal Environment Ministry

To contact the reporters on this story: Brian Parkin in Berlin at bparkin@bloomberg.net; Thom Rose in Frankfurt at Trose5bparkin@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: July 17, 2007 08:01 EDT