Towards a greener economy: The quest for nuclear energy technology budgeting

The growing climate change debate necessitates innovation in nuclear energy for economic activities worldwide. Existing studies, however, are skeptical of considering nuclear energy as clean energy in addressing climate change mitigation , natural resources managment, and waste management . This context addresses whether nuclear innovation has the same or a different effect on the green economy, as this question remains unexplored in the literature. We examine the impact of nuclear energy technology budgeting on the green economy in selected OECD countries using both time series and panel data from 1977 to 2019. The empirical findings highlight the heterogeneous effects of the nuclear energy technology budget on the green economy. The results demonstrate a significant negative influence of the nuclear energy technology budget on the green economy for Austria, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. These economies can potentially contribute significantly to the green economy due to their funds allocations towards nuclear energy technology. We also found that the budgets allocated to nuclear energy technology in Canada, Denmark, France, Japan , Norway, Portugal, Switzerland, and the United States have a negligible impact on the green economy. This suggests that these countries' failure to achieve green economies results from a nuclear energy technology budget.