Will Taipower formally submit a restart plan for the Kuosheng (No. 2) Nuclear Power Plant to Taiwan's Nuclear Safety Commission before May 17, 2026?

Prediction market on metaculus. Following the expiration of operating licenses on Taiwan's last operating reactor in May 2025, Taiwan amended its Nuclear Reactor Facilities Regulation Act in May 2025 to allow up to 20-year license extensions (extending reactor lifespans from 40 to 60 years). In November 2025, Taiwan's Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) approved Taipower's feasibility assessments to restart two of three shut-down nuclear plants — the Maanshan (No. 3) plant in Pingtung and the Kuosheng (No. 2) plant in New Taipei — while finding the older Chinshan (No. 1/Jinshan) plant not feasible to restart. On March 27, 2026, Taipower formally submitted its restart plan for the Maanshan plant to Taiwan's Nuclear Safety Commission (NSC), the body that succeeded the Atomic Energy Council in September 2023. As of early May 2026, Taipower has not submitted a separate restart plan for the Kuosheng plant. Officials have indicated that Kuosheng's restart timeline is more complicated than Maanshan's because used nuclear fuel must first be transferred from the reactor to on-site dry storage facilities before safety inspections can proceed, and the dry storage facilities have faced years of delays. Taipower contracted Holtec in December 2025 for over 150 multipurpose canister systems for Chinshan and Kuosheng. The government's stated target is for both plants to be operational by 2029. The restart plan submission is the first formal regulatory step, after which the NSC conducts a procedural review followed by substantive technical review by an external expert panel. After NSC approval of the plan, Taipower would conduct 18–24 months of self-implemented safety inspections before applying for a renewed operating license. `{"format": "llm_question", "info": {"rating": {"quality": 3, "ambiguity": 3, "resolvability": 4, "passes": true}}}`

Resolves: 5/16/2026.