Good Grapes Make Good Wine

Bioenergy is the most commonly used renewable energy source in the world, providing twice the amount of energy supplied by nuclear power plants. Whether it wishes to or not, the world is involved in a process of supporting or opposing bioenergy, limiting it where it is not advantageous or is considered too risky, or encouraging it where there are tangible environmental, economic, and social benefi ts. Requests by decision-makers and opinion-makers are becoming more and more pressing, and studies on the short-, medium-, and long-term prospects of bioenergy are becoming more frequent. In the fi ve-year period 2001–05, for example, the term switchgrass, the ‘model’ herbaceous energy crop species in the USA, appeared in 228 article headlines, whilst in the following fi ve years (2006–11), it appeared in 946 headlines (according to Google Scholar).