Economic growth, nuclear energy, renewable energy, and environmental quality: Investigating the environmental Kuznets curve and load capacity curve hypothesis

Multiple human activities influence the physical environment, interacting with humans and their surroundings. Our existence depends on various natural resources harvested or extracted from the environment, such as food, materials, and energy. This paper examines the environmental impact modeling and efficient use of nuclear and renewable energy while considering the roles of energy efficiency under the assumptions of EKC and LCC hypotheses in BRICS countries from 1990 to 2018. The long-run estimates are based on LM-Bootstrap Cointegration tests and Drisscoll-Kraay regressions. Financial development has been observed to have a negative relationship with the load capacity factor. However, interestingly, financial development has been found to have a positive relationship with CO2 emissions. Our findings indicate that the load capacity factor negatively correlates with economic growth in the long run-an increase in economic growth results in a reduction in load capacity. The long-term impact of economic expansion is a decline in environmental quality. Moreover, economic growth square is positive in the load capacity factor and negative in the case of CO2 emissions. This situation reflects the EKC and LCC hypothesis in the BRICS countries. When income increases, environmental quality initially decreases, and once a certain level of income is reached, ecological sensitivity and green technologies increase the load capacity factor. The negative coefficient value in the case of economic growth and the positive coefficient value of the square root of economic growth determines the LCC hypothesis, which is U shape relationship. On the other hand, the negative coefficient value of economic growth followed by the positive coefficient value of the square root of economic growth determines the existence of the EKC hypothesis in the BRICS countries, which is an inverse relationship. Research limitations and future directions are discussed. (c) 2023 International Association for Gondwana Research. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.