The People's Republic of China is the strategic beneficiary of Taiwan unilaterally closing down their nuclear power plants. I would not be surprised to learn the Chinese developed means to implement Taiwan's nuclear closure which echo the methods that Putin employed to shut down Germany's nuclear power fleet for strategic advantage. CGNP has criticized the unnecessary German nuclear shutdown on the GreenNUKE Substack. https://greennuke.substack.com/
Reuters is reporting that China has just surrounded Taiwan with naval ships and military aircraft flights. A big slap-in-the-face to US military power after the World can now see how outclassed they are in their war against Iran. $trillions spent on weapons systems that are now obsolete, pretty much impotent against drones and missiles.
Chris, Please fix "Replacing that nuclear output with gas requires far more primary energy because Taiwan’s combined cycle gas turbines operate at roughly 55 percent thermal efficiency." The primary energy produced by a nuclear power plant is thermal energy, converted to electricity at about 33% efficiency. The CCGTs achieve 55% because they are hotter than the steam of a LWR, limited by achievable pressure.
I was going to say the same thing, Robert. The raw input energy of nuclear materials is higher, though extremely dense. And the lower thermal efficiency is intentional in the design. However, the practical capacity factor of nuclear is likely higher. The point of the article stands solid though. Energy security with nuclear (small supply of uranium on hand) is far greater to achieve than with gas.
I like how BP invented the concept of "the substitution method" for pretending wind & solar are a whole lot more effective energy sources than they really are by giving them credit for their energy output X2.6, in primary energy data, claiming they will replace that much fossil fuel generation.
As if intermittent, unreliable, seasonal non-dispatchable electricity sources are in a 1:1 equivalence to fossil power plants. And neglecting all the inefficiencies of wind & solar electricity like overbuild, negative pricing, curtailment, long distance transmission losses, storage losses, high embodied energy losses, land effects losses, and more. And ignoring all the heat energy fossil & nuclear plants can & do use for plant heating, off site district heating, desalination or greenhouses.
To add misery to madness, instead of doing the rational and obvious, use the known heatrate of NPPs to calculate the primary thermal energy generated = 3X the electrical output. They also multiply nuclear by 2.6 thus underreporting nuclear primary energy by 15%.
They're restarting Maanshan and Kuosheng but it'll take like three years. Jinshan is not being restarted and Lungmen is of course dead. Taiwan is basically the poster child for where to build nuclear. Even the seismic risk can be managed, and is managed by many plants worldwide. They also learned from Lungmen that having a required % of local contractors led to immense graft and delays, and got rid of that requirement for their solar and wind buildout.
PM Cho Jung-tai signalled new stance on nuclear in address
Taiwan held the referendum to decide whether the Maanshan-2 nuclear power plant should be restarted. Courtesy Wikimedia/Creative Commons Licence.
Taiwan is edging closer to submitting plans to restart the Kuosheng and Maanshan nuclear power plants and the country will consider the development of new nuclear technology including small modular reactors (SMRs), its premier told a parliamentary session. (Remainder of article behind paywall.)
Here's a restart ally: Angelica Oung. "Taiwan must fight on for Nuclear
Taiwan voted 'yes' but the referendum to restart the 3rd Nuclear Power Plant didn't reach the binding threshold. The fight for the Atom on Silicon Island continues...," September 15, 2025, Elemental Substack.
It would be interesting to know if a majority vote was needed to shutdown the nucs. Politicians can find many excuses to support their favorite agenda.
This is all just more corruption. So the LNG producers lose about $600M/yr for every GWe NPP operational. Well worth it for them to pump a tiny fraction of that lost income into buying politicians, political parties, media and mercenary environmental NGOs in order to create opposition to nuclear power. A similar corruption campaign has been going on in South Korea.
A lot of info on that on Environmental Progress website:
"...South Korean filmmaker released the trailer for a feature-length disaster movie that opens with a nuclear power plant exploding and ends with the hero crying for his mother.
The film is called “Pandora” — a reference to the Greek myth about the woman created by Zeus to punish humans — and its slick special effects are equal to anything made by Hollywood.
After the power plant explodes, “Pandora” flashes manically back and forth between graphic scenes of workers suffering radiation poisoning, a hapless president overwhelmed by shadowy forces, and nostalgic reveries about the good old days, when Korea’s small southern towns were dominated by farming, fishing and tourism...Over five million Koreans, nearly one-fifth of the voting population, viewed “Pandora,” whose release was timed perfectly to influence the nation’s presidential elections. On May 9, voters elected Moon Jae-in, an anti-nuclear candidate, as president...er it was accused of secretly financing the film, Greenpeace insisted it had merely funded the screenings, street protests and lawsuits... Greenpeace also boasted, “There were a lot of mothers who came to watch the movie [holding] their children's hands,” which was no doubt reassuring for the youngsters as they watched the on-screen hero’s father die a blood-spattered death... Greenpeace — which generates nearly $400 million in annual revenues from sources it refuses to disclose — has been funneling millions of dollars to offices across East Asia, including in Seoul, since the 2011 Fukushima accident....Now President Moon is creating a “citizens’ jury” that will spend 90 days deliberating over whether to permanently halt construction on two new nuclear reactors that are 30 percent completed... Greenpeace is ratcheting up the pressure. Earlier this month, the organization’s new Executive Director and her entourage swept across South Korea, producing yet another wave of frenzied anti-nuclear news coverage..."
Letter to Taiwan's President Tsai Ing-wen, on the need to support nuclear power:
Amazing how these natural gas $billionaires get tax credits for donating to these mercenary ENGOs like Greenpeace. And the IRS allows them to keep their names secret, covering up who is making these typically >$1M annual donations.
The opposition party that now has the Presidency dpp is the Green Party, and part of the reason for the name is environmental. They have a strong anti nuclear ideology. Part of it may be if the KMT (blue party) is for it, they are against it.
Furthermore, Taiwan has the world's largest coal-fired plant, on the west side of the island, facing China. China can simply begin 'inspecting' arriving coal ships, then slowly increase the pressure until blackouts mothball Taiwan's economy. No invasion needed. China will then rescue Taiwan by building more nuclear power plants.
For additional details regarding Spain, please see, "The Spanish Version of the 'Duck Curve' is a real killer, "This curve underscores the problem of insufficient synchronous grid inertia in Spain on April 28, 2025," July 8, 2025, GreenNUKE Substack.
ElectricityMaps.com shows Spain continues to make heavy use of their nuclear generation fleet following the April 28, 2025 blackout that caused the deaths of at least eleven people who were depending on reliable electric power. The economic harms from lost productivity and damaged production equipment were denominated with the equivalent of billions of U.S. dollars.
Note that Spain has one of the most neoliberal regimes in the EU. Similar to Germany. And typically you find the more neoliberal a government is, the more opposed they are to nuclear power. Strange coincidence, they happen to also be the biggest promoters of "global boiling" fear porn. Lot's of climate change rhetoric, but where the rubber meets the road, all they have to offer is more wind & solar wishes and dreams.
The People's Republic of China is the strategic beneficiary of Taiwan unilaterally closing down their nuclear power plants. I would not be surprised to learn the Chinese developed means to implement Taiwan's nuclear closure which echo the methods that Putin employed to shut down Germany's nuclear power fleet for strategic advantage. CGNP has criticized the unnecessary German nuclear shutdown on the GreenNUKE Substack. https://greennuke.substack.com/
For example, see: "Taiwan's nuclear phase-out faces public opinion shift," September 25, 2025, East Asia Forum.
https://eastasiaforum.org/2025/09/25/taiwans-nuclear-phase-out-faces-public-opinion-shift/
Reuters is reporting that China has just surrounded Taiwan with naval ships and military aircraft flights. A big slap-in-the-face to US military power after the World can now see how outclassed they are in their war against Iran. $trillions spent on weapons systems that are now obsolete, pretty much impotent against drones and missiles.
It's pretty much a guarantee that the CCP financed the anti-nuclear movement in Taiwan.
Yes. I believe the CCP is also embedded within the Taiwanese government.
Chris, Please fix "Replacing that nuclear output with gas requires far more primary energy because Taiwan’s combined cycle gas turbines operate at roughly 55 percent thermal efficiency." The primary energy produced by a nuclear power plant is thermal energy, converted to electricity at about 33% efficiency. The CCGTs achieve 55% because they are hotter than the steam of a LWR, limited by achievable pressure.
I was going to say the same thing, Robert. The raw input energy of nuclear materials is higher, though extremely dense. And the lower thermal efficiency is intentional in the design. However, the practical capacity factor of nuclear is likely higher. The point of the article stands solid though. Energy security with nuclear (small supply of uranium on hand) is far greater to achieve than with gas.
I like how BP invented the concept of "the substitution method" for pretending wind & solar are a whole lot more effective energy sources than they really are by giving them credit for their energy output X2.6, in primary energy data, claiming they will replace that much fossil fuel generation.
As if intermittent, unreliable, seasonal non-dispatchable electricity sources are in a 1:1 equivalence to fossil power plants. And neglecting all the inefficiencies of wind & solar electricity like overbuild, negative pricing, curtailment, long distance transmission losses, storage losses, high embodied energy losses, land effects losses, and more. And ignoring all the heat energy fossil & nuclear plants can & do use for plant heating, off site district heating, desalination or greenhouses.
To add misery to madness, instead of doing the rational and obvious, use the known heatrate of NPPs to calculate the primary thermal energy generated = 3X the electrical output. They also multiply nuclear by 2.6 thus underreporting nuclear primary energy by 15%.
They're restarting Maanshan and Kuosheng but it'll take like three years. Jinshan is not being restarted and Lungmen is of course dead. Taiwan is basically the poster child for where to build nuclear. Even the seismic risk can be managed, and is managed by many plants worldwide. They also learned from Lungmen that having a required % of local contractors led to immense graft and delays, and got rid of that requirement for their solar and wind buildout.
Thanks. See: "Restart of two Taiwanese plants feasible, ministry says," 28 November 2025, World Nuclear News.
https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/articles/restart-of-two-taiwanese-plants-feasible-ministry-says
"Taiwan To Submit Nuclear Restart Plans And Will Consider Developing SMRs And Fusion Energy, " By Nigel Davies, 3 March 2026, NucNet.
https://www.nucnet.org/news/taiwan-to-submit-nuclear-restart-plans-and-will-consider-developing-smrs-and-fusion-energy-3-2-2026
PM Cho Jung-tai signalled new stance on nuclear in address
Taiwan held the referendum to decide whether the Maanshan-2 nuclear power plant should be restarted. Courtesy Wikimedia/Creative Commons Licence.
Taiwan is edging closer to submitting plans to restart the Kuosheng and Maanshan nuclear power plants and the country will consider the development of new nuclear technology including small modular reactors (SMRs), its premier told a parliamentary session. (Remainder of article behind paywall.)
Lol yes, I'm working to support the restart. There's a lot going on behind the scenes.
Here's a restart ally: Angelica Oung. "Taiwan must fight on for Nuclear
Taiwan voted 'yes' but the referendum to restart the 3rd Nuclear Power Plant didn't reach the binding threshold. The fight for the Atom on Silicon Island continues...," September 15, 2025, Elemental Substack.
https://elementalenergy.substack.com/p/taiwan-must-fight-on-for-nuclear
From my understanding restart of Maanshan and Kuosheng is a done deal. That's definitely how we're moving forward working with TPC.
Thank you Sylvia for that positive news!
It would be interesting to know if a majority vote was needed to shutdown the nucs. Politicians can find many excuses to support their favorite agenda.
This is all just more corruption. So the LNG producers lose about $600M/yr for every GWe NPP operational. Well worth it for them to pump a tiny fraction of that lost income into buying politicians, political parties, media and mercenary environmental NGOs in order to create opposition to nuclear power. A similar corruption campaign has been going on in South Korea.
A lot of info on that on Environmental Progress website:
https://environmentalprogress.org/big-news/2017/7/25/greenpeaces-dirty-war-on-clean-energy-part-i-south-korean-version
"...South Korean filmmaker released the trailer for a feature-length disaster movie that opens with a nuclear power plant exploding and ends with the hero crying for his mother.
The film is called “Pandora” — a reference to the Greek myth about the woman created by Zeus to punish humans — and its slick special effects are equal to anything made by Hollywood.
After the power plant explodes, “Pandora” flashes manically back and forth between graphic scenes of workers suffering radiation poisoning, a hapless president overwhelmed by shadowy forces, and nostalgic reveries about the good old days, when Korea’s small southern towns were dominated by farming, fishing and tourism...Over five million Koreans, nearly one-fifth of the voting population, viewed “Pandora,” whose release was timed perfectly to influence the nation’s presidential elections. On May 9, voters elected Moon Jae-in, an anti-nuclear candidate, as president...er it was accused of secretly financing the film, Greenpeace insisted it had merely funded the screenings, street protests and lawsuits... Greenpeace also boasted, “There were a lot of mothers who came to watch the movie [holding] their children's hands,” which was no doubt reassuring for the youngsters as they watched the on-screen hero’s father die a blood-spattered death... Greenpeace — which generates nearly $400 million in annual revenues from sources it refuses to disclose — has been funneling millions of dollars to offices across East Asia, including in Seoul, since the 2011 Fukushima accident....Now President Moon is creating a “citizens’ jury” that will spend 90 days deliberating over whether to permanently halt construction on two new nuclear reactors that are 30 percent completed... Greenpeace is ratcheting up the pressure. Earlier this month, the organization’s new Executive Director and her entourage swept across South Korea, producing yet another wave of frenzied anti-nuclear news coverage..."
Letter to Taiwan's President Tsai Ing-wen, on the need to support nuclear power:
https://environmentalprogress.org/taiwan-letter
https://environmentalprogress.org/big-news/2017/10/16/enemies-of-the-earth-unmasking-dirty-war-friends-of-earth-greenpeace-south-korea-nuclear-energy?rq=taiwan
Amazing how these natural gas $billionaires get tax credits for donating to these mercenary ENGOs like Greenpeace. And the IRS allows them to keep their names secret, covering up who is making these typically >$1M annual donations.
Taiwan seems to have flirted with reunification internally and nudged itself there by ruining its army ~ 2014 , this sounds like same theme.
Then they got frightened and now they’re running back the other way.
This.doesn’t.work.
Good lesson for others though.
Energy retardery is the dominant characteristic of clownworld.
The opposition party that now has the Presidency dpp is the Green Party, and part of the reason for the name is environmental. They have a strong anti nuclear ideology. Part of it may be if the KMT (blue party) is for it, they are against it.
Furthermore, Taiwan has the world's largest coal-fired plant, on the west side of the island, facing China. China can simply begin 'inspecting' arriving coal ships, then slowly increase the pressure until blackouts mothball Taiwan's economy. No invasion needed. China will then rescue Taiwan by building more nuclear power plants.
Spain is in the process of a similar shut-down of all their reactors for purely pollical reasons, plus Belgium has gone part-way down the path.
For additional details regarding Spain, please see, "The Spanish Version of the 'Duck Curve' is a real killer, "This curve underscores the problem of insufficient synchronous grid inertia in Spain on April 28, 2025," July 8, 2025, GreenNUKE Substack.
https://greennuke.substack.com/p/the-spanish-version-of-the-duck-curve
ElectricityMaps.com shows Spain continues to make heavy use of their nuclear generation fleet following the April 28, 2025 blackout that caused the deaths of at least eleven people who were depending on reliable electric power. The economic harms from lost productivity and damaged production equipment were denominated with the equivalent of billions of U.S. dollars.
Note that Spain has one of the most neoliberal regimes in the EU. Similar to Germany. And typically you find the more neoliberal a government is, the more opposed they are to nuclear power. Strange coincidence, they happen to also be the biggest promoters of "global boiling" fear porn. Lot's of climate change rhetoric, but where the rubber meets the road, all they have to offer is more wind & solar wishes and dreams.
Truly a shame I hope imhere in Italy we will start building again
NUTS!