Marginal effect of clean energy, nuclear energy-related R&D investment, energy security risk, and policy uncertainty on the environment in the USA

Environmental problems have been attracting the interest of all relevant parties because of the increasing negative effects on humanity. At this point, further clean, especially nuclear, energy consumption (EC) is seen as a strategic option to combat environmental deterioration (ED). Because clean energy, nuclear energy-related R (ii) GDP, ESR, and TPU is almost completely unhelpful to decline CO 2 emissions; (iii) the interaction of NRD and EPU with NEC provide a decrease in CO 2 emissions; (iv) KRLS approach successfully estimates variations in CO 2 emissions around 95%; (v) some variables (e.g., GDP & TPU) have a varying effect across percentiles, whereas others don’t. Thus, the study reveals the efficiency of certain factors (e.g., REC, EPU, interaction of NEC with NRD & EPU) on CO 2 emissions, whereas GDP, NEC, ESR, & TPU can’t be helpful to protect the environment. Accordingly, the study argues policy implications (e.g., allocating free/low cost land, ensuring low cost financing support, removing customs-related barriers to import relevant components to install new clean EC capacity in short term, trying to nationally produce clean EC components in long term, ensuring long-term security of rare earth minerals, as well as preventing the displacement between REC and NEC through simultaneously supporting both REC and NEC to appropriately allocating incentives) for USA policymakers.