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Evaluating the efficiency of nuclear energy policies: an empirical examination for 26 countries

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Abstract

The decarbonization of the global economy is an urgent concern. As a potential solution, it can be important to understand the efficiency of nuclear energy policies. For this purpose, the paper analyzes whether there is a unit root in nuclear energy consumption in 26 countries and it uses the unit root tests with two endogenous (unknown) structural breaks. The paper finds that nuclear energy consumption is stationary around a level and the time trend in 25 of 26 countries and nuclear energy consumption contains a unit root only in France. The paper also discusses the potential implications of the findings.

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Notes

  1. This concern only applies to countries with currency controls. For instance, in Europe and the USA it has not been a concern since the 1980s and for the countries with freely traded currencies and with market exchange rates there is little or no problem here.

  2. Nuclear new build reduces carbon emissions only if it displaces existing carbon emitting generation. If it merely meets growing demand growth, then there will be no emissions benefit.

  3. At this stage, Zhu and Guo (2016) use the panel unit root test with structural breaks over the period 1993–2013 across 27 countries, while we consider the individual (time series) unit root tests with two structural breaks for the period from the 1970s to 2014 in 26 countries.

  4. See Smyth (2013) for a literature review in detail.

  5. Argentina, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, the Czech Republic, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, India, Japan, Mexico, the Netherlands, Pakistan, Russia, Slovakia, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Ukraine, the UK, and the USA

  6. China is excluded from the empirical analysis due to the fact that the GAUSS codes could not run for such a small sample case (1993–2014).

  7. Another issue in the unit root test methodology for (nuclear) energy consumption is to consider structural breaks both in the constant and the time-trend terms (Gozgor 2016; Smyth and Narayan 2015).

  8. See Narayan and Popp (2010, 1427–32) for the derivation of the unit root test statistics by combining the structural models and the results of the Monte Carlo simulations for generating the CVs both in small and finite sample sizes.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Istanbul Medeniyet University, Unalan Street 5, Uskudar, 34700, Istanbul, Turkey

    Giray Gozgor & Ender Demir

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  1. Giray Gozgor
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  2. Ender Demir
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Correspondence to Giray Gozgor.

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Responsible editor: Philippe Garrigues

Appendix. Time series plots for nuclear energy consumption in 26 countries

Appendix. Time series plots for nuclear energy consumption in 26 countries

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Gozgor, G., Demir, E. Evaluating the efficiency of nuclear energy policies: an empirical examination for 26 countries. Environ Sci Pollut Res 24, 18596–18604 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-017-9486-3

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