Nuclear Engineering and Technology · 2022 · 112 citations · 55 references
The study investigates the environmental footprint impacts of nuclear energy consumption in the ten largest ecological footprint countries from 1990 to 2017, considering environmental technology and globalization. By addressing cross‑sectional dependence, the authors employ Lagrange multiplier bootstrap cointegration, Driscoll‑Kraay standard errors, feasible generalized least squares, and panel‑corrected standard errors to ensure robust long‑run estimation. The findings reveal that nuclear energy consumption, environmental technology, and population density significantly reduce ecological footprint, while globalization and economic growth increase it, and these results remain robust when assessed with carbon footprint and CO₂ emissions, highlighting nuclear energy’s role in sustainable development.
This study investigates the environmental footprint impacts of nuclear energy consumption in the presence of environmental technology and globalization of the ten largest ecological footprint countries from 1990 up to 2017. By considering a set of methods that can help solve the issue of cross-sectional dependence, we employ the Lagrange multiplier bootstrap cointegration method, Driscoll-Kraay standard errors for long-run estimation and feasible generalized least squares (FGLS) and panel-corrected standard errors (PCSE) for robustness. The finding revealed significant negative effects of nuclear energy consumption, environmental-related technology, population density and significant positive effects of globalization and economic growth on ecological footprint. These results are also robust by assessing the long-run impacts of predictors on carbon footprint and CO2 emissions as alternate ecological measures. These conclusions provide the profound significance of nuclear energy consumption for environmentally sustainable development in the top ten ecological footprint countries and serve as an important reference for ecological security for other countries globally.
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