The current revelations of a International Energy Administration whistleblower that the IEA might have distorted crucial oil projections under extreme U.S. pressure is, if true (and whistleblowers rarely come forward to advance their professions), a slow-burning thermonuclear surge on future international oil production. The Bush administration's actions in pushing the IEA to underplay the rate of decrease from existing oil fields while overplaying the opportunities of discovering new reserves have the potential to toss federal governments' long-lasting planning into mayhem.
Whatever the reality, rising long term worldwide demands appear specific to overtake production in the next decade, specifically provided the high and increasing costs of developing new super-fields such as Kazakhstan's offshore Kashagan and Brazil's southern Atlantic Jupiter and Carioca fields, which will require billions in investments before their first barrels of oil are produced.
In such a circumstance, ingredients and replacements such as biofuels will play an ever-increasing function by stretching beleaguered production quotas. As market forces and increasing prices drive this innovation to the forefront, one of the wealthiest potential production locations has actually been absolutely ignored by financiers up to now - Central Asia. Formerly the USSR's cotton "plantation," the region is poised to end up being a major player in the production of biofuels if adequate foreign investment can be obtained. Unlike Brazil, where biofuel is manufactured mainly from sugarcane, or the United States, where it is mostly distilled from corn, Central Asia's ace resource is a native plant, Camelina sativa.
Of the former Soviet Caucasian and Central Asian republics, those clustered around the shores of the Caspian, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan have actually seen their economies boom because of record-high energy rates, while Turkmenistan is waiting in the wings as a rising manufacturer of natural gas.
Farther to the east, in Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, geographical isolation and reasonably little hydrocarbon resources relative to their Western Caspian next-door neighbors have largely inhibited their capability to money in on rising international energy demands already. Mountainous Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan remain mainly reliant for their electrical requirements on their Soviet-era hydroelectric facilities, but their increased need to generate winter electricity has caused autumnal and winter water discharges, in turn severely impacting the farming of their western downstream next-door neighbors Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan.
What these 3 downstream nations do have nevertheless is a Soviet-era legacy of agricultural production, which in Uzbekistan's and Turkmenistan case was mainly directed towards cotton production, while Kazakhstan, beginning in the 1950s with Khrushchev's "Virgin Lands" programs, has actually ended up being a major manufacturer of wheat. Based upon my conversations with Central Asian government authorities, provided the thirsty demands of cotton monoculture, foreign proposals to diversify agrarian production towards biofuel would have terrific appeal in Astana, Ashgabat and Tashkent and to a lower extent Astana for those hardy investors ready to wager on the future, particularly as a plant native to the area has already proven itself in trials.
Known in the West as incorrect flax, wild flax, linseed dodder, German sesame and Siberian oilseed, camelina is attracting increased scientific interest for its oleaginous qualities, with several European and American companies currently examining how to produce it in industrial quantities for biofuel. In January Japan Airlines carried out a historical test flight using camelina-based bio-jet fuel, ending up being the very first Asian carrier to explore flying on fuel originated from sustainable feedstocks during a one-hour presentation flight from Tokyo's Haneda Airport. The test was the conclusion of a 12-month examination of camelina's operational efficiency capability and possible commercial viability.
As an alternative energy source, camelina has much to advise it. It has a high oil material low in saturated fat. In contrast to Central Asia's thirsty "king cotton," camelina is drought-resistant and unsusceptible to spring freezing, needs less fertilizer and herbicides, and can be utilized as a rotation crop with wheat, which would make it of specific interest in Kazakhstan, now Central Asia's significant wheat exporter. Another reward of camelina is its tolerance of poorer, less fertile conditions. An acre sown with camelina can produce approximately 100 gallons of oil and when planted in rotation with wheat, camelina can increase wheat production by 15 percent. A heap (1000 kg) of camelina will contain 350 kg of oil, of which pushing can draw out 250 kg. Nothing in camelina production is squandered as after processing, the plant's debris can be used for livestock silage. Camelina silage has an especially appealing concentration of omega-3 fats that make it an especially great animals feed candidate that is simply now getting acknowledgment in the U.S. and Canada. Camelina is quick growing, produces its own natural herbicide (allelopathy) and completes well versus weeds when an even crop is developed. According to Britain's Bangor University's Centre for Alternative Land Use, "Camelina might be an ideal low-input crop appropriate for bio-diesel production, due to its lower requirements for nitrogen fertilizer than oilseed rape."
Camelina, a branch of the mustard household, is native to both Europe and Central Asia and barely a brand-new crop on the scene: historical proof suggests it has actually been cultivated in Europe for a minimum of three millennia to produce both vegetable oil and animal fodder.
Field trials of production in Montana, currently the center of U.S. camelina research study, revealed a wide range of results of 330-1,700 lbs of seed per acre, with oil content varying between 29 and 40%. Optimal seeding rates have been identified to be in the 6-8 pound per acre range, as the seeds' small size of 400,000 seeds per pound can develop problems in germination to achieve an optimum plant density of around 9 plants per sq. ft.
Camelina's potential could enable Uzbekistan to start breaking out of its most dolorous legacy, the imposition of a cotton monoculture that has deformed the nation's attempts at agrarian reform considering that achieving independence in 1991. Beginning in the late 19th century, the Russian government determined that Central Asia would become its cotton plantation to feed Moscow's growing textile market. The process was accelerated under the Soviets. While Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan were also bought by Moscow to plant cotton, Uzbekistan in specific was singled out to produce "white gold."
By the end of the 1930s the Soviet Union had become self-dependent in cotton; 5 years later it had actually ended up being a significant exporter of cotton, producing more than one-fifth of the world's production, focused in Uzbekistan, which produced 70 percent of the Soviet Union's output.
Try as it might to diversify, in the lack of alternatives Tashkent remains wedded to cotton, producing about 3.6 million tons every year, which brings in more than $1 billion while constituting roughly 60 percent of the country's hard cash earnings.
Beginning in the mid-1960s the Soviet federal government's instructions for Central Asian cotton production largely bankrupted the area's scarcest resource, water. Cotton utilizes about 3.5 acre feet of water per acre of plants, leading Soviet coordinators to divert ever-increasing volumes of water from the region's 2 main rivers, the Amu Darya and Syr Darya, into ineffective watering canals, leading to the remarkable shrinkage of the rivers' last location, the Aral Sea. The Aral, once the world's fourth-largest inland sea with a location of 26,000 square miles, has diminished to one-quarter its original size in one of the 20th century's worst environmental catastrophes.
And now, the dollars and cents. Dr. Bill Schillinger at Washington State University recently explained camelina's organization design to Capital Press as: "At 1,400 pounds per acre at 16 cents a pound, camelina would bring in $224 per acre; 28-bushel white wheat at $8.23 per bushel would amass $230."
Central Asia has the land, the farms, the irrigation facilities and a modest wage scale in contrast to America or Europe - all that's missing is the foreign financial investment. U.S. investors have the money and access to the proficiency of America's land grant universities. What is certain is that biofuel's market share will grow over time; less specific is who will profit of establishing it as a feasible issue in Central Asia.
If the current past is anything to go by it is unlikely to be American and European financiers, focused as they are on Caspian oil and gas.
But while the Japanese flight experiments suggest Asian interest, American investors have the academic proficiency, if they are ready to follow the Silk Road into developing a brand-new market. Certainly anything that minimizes water use and pesticides, diversifies crop production and enhances the lot of their agrarian population will get most careful consideration from Central Asia's governments, and farming and grease processing plants are not just more affordable than pipelines, they can be developed quicker.
And jatropha's biofuel potential? Another story for another time.
