Agricultural Energy Crops and the Search for Alternative Energy: Analysis of the Current Research and Core Journal Literature on Biofuels and Bioenergy

ABSTRACT

This paper analyzes the agricultural research output on energy crops and bioenergy for the period 2000–2005. Seven hundred eighty-three (783) articles gathered from CAB Abstracts from this period were analyzed to determine which disciplines have been publishing the most on this subject. The findings show that engineering-related research is most prevalent but that twelve distinct agricultural disciplines produced research on the subject during the study period, with varying degrees of productivity for each discipline. The actual agricultural energy resources being researched were determined by examining the 783 articles. The resources were divided into woody crops, non-woody crops, and animal-based resources, and the number of articles for each was tabulated. The three resource types were further examined to create a list of the individual crops or animal-based resources under investigation, along with the number of articles for each individual crop or resource. The core journal literature dealing with energy crops and bioenergy was determined by doing searches in both CAB Abstracts and Web of Science and tabulating the number of articles appearing in each journal. This allowed for the creation of a core journal list, ranked by the number of appropriate articles appearing in each journal.