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Energy Strategy Reviews 1 (2012) 1e2

Energy Strategy Reviews

journal homepage: www.ees.elsevier .com/esr

EDITORIAL

Energy Strategy Reviews: Perspective and Ambition

This maiden issue contains peer-reviewed articles on energy strategy, planning, decision making, modeling and analysis related to

society’s energy needs. The lead article, authored by a representative team of experts on the Editorial Board, reviews the models

and actors relevant for the future optimization of Energy Mix solutions. The challenge is to improve, not only the energy system models,

but also the alignment of leading decision-makers who must use these models to effectuate optimum strategy choices for our future

energy systems. Our journal’s vision is that the sharing of energy visions and strategy plans by organizations, corporations and states

will contribute to establish a common knowledge base for optimizing our future energy choices. ‘Optimists bet on Human ingenuity

to spring the Malthusian trap, as it has done so before’ - the Economist. Energy Strategy Reviews captures and disseminates that

ingenuity.

Getting started

Starting a new journal is not something

that can be realized overnight. Energy

Strategy Reviews (ESR) has been developed

in close consultation with experts in the fieldand Elsevier. A couple of important go/no-go

dates have been successfully passed in thecourse of 2010. The detailed arrangements

with Elsevier were completed in June 2011.The Aims and Scope of the journal were final-

ized in July 2011, and we went ‘online’ inAugust 2011. The Elsevier Editorial System

was uploaded with the appropriate classifica-tion categories so editors and authors could

find matching experts.In September 2011, the first official journal

announcement went out in an e-mailingcampaign to nearly 50,000 people. Within 24

hours, nearly 10,000 people had opened theirmail, and 1,500 had visited the web pages of

Energy Strategy Reviews. We immediatelyreceived enthusiastic responses, and a dozen

manuscripts were uploaded by authors fromaround the globe in the journal management

system. Most were judged outside the Aimsand Scope of the journal, but some of these

papers may eventually make into print.

‘I think this is a timely journal, and wish itgreat success’ e Prof. T. Nejat Veziroglu,

Founding Editor-in-Chief of the Interna-tional Journal of Hydrogen Energy pub-

lished by Elsevier on behalf of the IAHE.‘This new journal is very much needed’ e

Prof. Ignacio Perez-Arriaga, Director ofthe BP Chair on Energy and Sustainability,

Comillas University, Madrid.

2211-467X/$ e see front matter � 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All right

doi:10.1016/j.esr.2011.11.001

Aims and Scope

Energy Strategy Reviews provides a single

platform for publishing authoritative contenton strategic decision-making and vision-

sharing related to society’s energy needs.The journal stimulates the exchange and

sharing of knowledge and best practice inenergy strategy, planning and implementa-

tion. Practitioner analyses and scholarly arti-cles are peer-reviewed. Analytical reviews of

energy strategies, aimed at revealing whatunderpins successful and less successful strat-

egies, are welcome.Energy Strategy Reviews will also highlight

major energy initiatives in executive summarystyle, with reference to relevant supportmate-

rial. The sharing of energy visions and strategyplans by organizations, corporations and states

will contribute to establish a common knowl-edgebase for optimizing future energychoices.

Sections featured

Launching in 2012 Energy Strategy

Reviews will fill the gap between the tech-

nical and scientific energy journals andthe reports published by agencies, consultan-

cies and businesses. Energy Strategy Reviews

offers a focused peer-reviewed platform for

articles on energy strategy, planning, deci-

sion making, modeling and analysis. Wefeature the following sections:

� Analysise Authoritative, full-length analysis

of the drivers, trends, scenarios, and ramifi-cations of national and international energy

s reserved.

visions and strategies by international

agencies, governments, corporations andNGOs. Articles will be fact-based, founded

in trends for new tools and technologies,energy mixes, demographics, and geograph-

ical variations, and focus on the implicationsfor the future. Research papers on decision-

making related to energy strategy (withlimited emphasis on tools and methods) will

also be considered. An analysis is subject toa 10e12 pp article limit.

� Case Study e Problem-oriented short paperdedicated to specific energy strategy ques-

tions with an innovative focus. Case studieson energy strategy implementation chal-

lenges and opportunities are of particularinterest. A Case Study requires a concise

presentation and is subject to a 5 pp articlelimit.

� Report Review e A Report Review summa-rizes, reviews and comments on a single

major energy report, or several major inter-related reports (strategies, scenarios,

statistics), published by international andnational organizations, such as energy

agencies and corporations. All peer-reviewed Report Reviews must aim to

achieve a good balance between graphicaldisplay of data, methodology and conclu-

sions. Depending on the scope, the article

page limit can vary from 1 to 5 pp.

Commissioned content

The journal appears quarterly with 4

issues planned for 2012. The journal contentfor the first few issues is mostly commissioned

Fig. 1. China versus US world share of total article output (1996-2008) extrapolated with a linear best-fit trend.

Selected country shares of global output are also included. Source: Scopus Country Data, October 2010; Elsevier Editors’

Update Issue 33 September 2011 volume 3.

Editorial / Energy Strategy Reviews 1 (2012) 1e22

from known experts, to ensure high quality

and focus. However, authors with relevant,high-quality output are strongly encouraged

to submit their papers to the journal. In thefirst year, each issue will be thematic with

emphasis on a particular energy resource.Issues are now planned as follows: #1 Focus

on Natural Gas and Energy Strategy, #2: Focuson Oil and Energy Strategy, #3: Focus on Coal

and Electrical Power Strategies, #4: Focus onNuclear Energy Strategies.

The Journal will provide a platform fornew insights and relevant results that serve

the interest of authors and readers from allparts of the world by providing comprehen-

sive and top-quality coverage. Researchersare increasingly under pressure to publish

articles in journals with high impact actors.Funding agencies expect researchers to

publish in journals with high impact factors.ESR would like to establish a respectable

impact factor ideally after two year of firstpublication.

Challenges

Energy strategy and its impact on energy

market dynamics play a central role in solving

the world’s energy needs. The global energymarket is considerably impacted by the mete-

oric rise of China, which has overtaken the USas world’s largest energy consumer in 2009.

China will also overtake the US role as theworld’s largest scientific output generator

by 2013 (Fig. 1) - and it is set to becomethe world’s largest economy by 2016 (on

purchasing-power-parity basis; and in 2019using real growth and exchange rates). The

explosive growth in article output of China isunique. While India is catching up, output

numbers are still modest but the growthpercentage is impressive (Fig. 1). The

geographical shift in the energy balance isreflected in the world’s scientific output. A

gradual adaptation of journals’ authors andeditorial boards takes place to mirror the

rise of Asia. ESR will follow that trend.

Editorial board

Our Editorial Board taps into a network ofthe world’s premier energy system modelers

and covers the entire field of energy strategy.We exercise the following tasks and responsi-

bilities: (1) Re-adjusting, influencing andsafe-guarding the strategic direction for and

positioning of the journal from time to time

and when necessary, (2) suggesting and edit-ing special issues, and (3) mobilizing an ever

expanding network of reviewers to get the

job done. The profiles of our Editors are out-lined at the journal’s web portal (www.

elsevier.com/locate/esr).The Editor-in-Chief screens and makes an

initial assessmentonthe suitability ofallmanu-scripts submitted for potential publication in

Energy Strategy Reviews. We only send manu-scripts out for review if these meet the scope

of the journal, with an emphasis on originalityand significance in the broad development of

the energy strategy field.The Associate Editors advise the Editor-in-

Chief on the decision categories (rejection,minor revision, major revision, acceptance)

based on the detailed reports of thereviewers commissioned by them. The work-

flow between the Editor-in-Chief, AssociateEditors and Reviewers is assisted by the Elsev-

ier on-line journal management system.

Freely available and webcast

Energy Strategy Reviews, in its first year,

will be made freely available to ScienceDirectusers (http://www.sciencedirect.com/) to

maximize awareness worldwide and to build

the journal’s profile and impact right fromthe start. ScienceDirect is Elsevier’s leading

full-text scientific database offering journal

articles and book chapters from more than2,500 peer-reviewed journals and more than

11,000 books. ScienceDirect is a vital dailysource of information for more than 16million

researchers, scientists and professionalsaround the globe. The ScienceDirect Energy

area alone has close to 500,000 unique visi-tors each month and more than 3 million

page views per month. In addition the journalwill be automatically listed in Scopus (http://

www.scopus.com/home.url), the world’slargest abstract and citation database of

peer-reviewed literature and quality websources. ESR will be promoted at the World

Future Energy Summit held in Abu Dhabi,January 2012 (http://www.worldfutureener

gysummit.com/).

Ruud Weijermars, Editor-in-ChiefDelft University of Technology,

The Netherlands

Henri van Dorssen, Executive PublisherElsevier Limited, UK

Available online 7 November 2011