How does geopolitical risk affect sustainable nuclear energy development?
Shiyong Zheng, Sidra Sohail, İlhan Öztürk, Sana Ullah, Razaz Waheeb Attar
Abstract
Nuclear energy can play a vital role in the global transition toward sustainable energy sources because nuclear energy is widely recognized as a carbon-free energy source and helps mitigate the environmental impacts of economic activities. Thus, it is essential to shed light on the factors that can promote global nuclear energy production. This analysis aims to investigate the impact of geopolitical risk on nuclear energy production in the top nuclear energy-consuming nations from 1996 to 2022. The study employs a cross-sectional autoregressive distributed lag (CS-ARDL) model for empirical analysis and disaggregates the data into groups of developed and developed economies. The analysis confirms that the geopolitical risk boosts long-run nuclear energy production in developed and developing economies. Additionally, the GDP, financial development, research and development spending, and environmental technologies cause nuclear energy production to rise in the long run in developed and developing nations. However, in the short run, only GDP and environmental technologies boost nuclear energy production in both groups of economies, while geopolitical risk, financial development, and research and development technologies do not exert a significant impact on nuclear energy production. These findings imply that policymakers should take advantage of the risky geopolitical situations and increase reliance on domestic energy sources by increasing nuclear energy production.