Rising greenhouse gas emissions are causing climate change, and the world’s focus has
shifted to the need to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels. There has been a
rise in the published literature on the utilization of crops for bioenergy
production in Louisiana. However, very few scholarly documents have used Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to map the
distribution of potential bioenergy crops in Louisiana.This
study seeks to fill the voidbyevaluating the potential of bioenergy crops in Louisiana for
energy production using GIS. Given this objective,the agricultural
census data for 1999, 2009, 2019, and 2020 obtained from the U.S.
Department of Agriculture were used in the analysis.The quantities of various crops produced in the state were loaded into an attribute table and joined to a shapefile using ArcGIS software. The
symbology tool’s graduated option was used to
create five maps representing each of the bioenergy crops in Louisiana.The
findings of the GIS analysis show that
some of the parishes, such as Franklin produced the most bushels of corn
(13,795,416), Iberia produced the most tons of sugarcane (1,697,980), East
Carroll produced the most bushels of soybean (8,237,991), Tensas harvested the most bales of cotton (80,898) and
Avoyelles produced the most bushels of sorghum (630,694).The
abundance and availability of crops as raw materials
for energy production will translate into lower prices in terms of energy use, making bioenergy crops a promising alternative to fossil fuels. In
addition, gasoline price data from 1993-2022 was obtained from U.S. Energy
Information Administration. A regression model for the average annual gasoline
price over the years was constructed.The results show that the average
annual gasoline price variation with respect to years is statistically significant
(p<0.05). This suggests that gasoline prices will
generallyrise despite a price dropover the years.The paper concludes by outlining policy recommendations
in the form of assessing the availability and viability of other crop types,
such as wheat, oats, and rice,for energy production in the state.
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