The current discoveries of a International Energy Administration whistleblower that the IEA may have misshaped key oil projections under intense U.S. pressure is, if true (and whistleblowers hardly ever step forward to advance their careers), a slow-burning atomic surge on future international oil production. The Bush administration's actions in pushing the IEA to underplay the rate of decline from existing oil fields while overplaying the opportunities of discovering brand-new reserves have the potential to throw governments' long-lasting planning into chaos.
Whatever the truth, increasing long term global demands appear certain to overtake production in the next years, specifically given the high and rising expenses of developing brand-new super-fields such as Kazakhstan's overseas Kashagan and Brazil's southern Atlantic Jupiter and Carioca fields, which will require billions in investments before their very first barrels of oil are produced.
In such a situation, additives and substitutes such as biofuels will play an ever-increasing role by stretching beleaguered production quotas. As market forces and increasing prices drive this technology to the forefront, one of the richest potential production areas has been completely neglected by financiers already - Central Asia. Formerly the USSR's cotton "plantation," the area is poised to end up being a significant gamer in the production of biofuels if adequate foreign financial investment can be acquired. Unlike Brazil, where biofuel is produced mostly from sugarcane, or the United States, where it is mainly distilled from corn, Central Asia's ace resource is a native plant, Camelina sativa.
Of the previous Soviet Caucasian and Central Asian republics, those clustered around the coasts of the Caspian, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan have actually seen their economies boom since of record-high energy prices, while Turkmenistan is waiting in the wings as a rising producer of natural gas.
Farther to the east, in Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, geographical isolation and reasonably scant hydrocarbon resources relative to their Western Caspian next-door neighbors have actually largely prevented their capability to money in on rising worldwide energy demands up to now. Mountainous Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan stay mostly reliant for their electrical requirements on their Soviet-era hydroelectric infrastructure, but their increased need to produce winter season electrical energy has led to autumnal and winter water discharges, in turn significantly impacting the farming of their western downstream next-door neighbors Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan.
What these three downstream nations do have nevertheless is a Soviet-era tradition of farming production, which in Uzbekistan's and Turkmenistan case was mostly directed towards cotton production, while Kazakhstan, starting in the 1950s with Khrushchev's "Virgin Lands" programs, has actually become a major producer of wheat. Based on my conversations with Central Asian government officials, given the thirsty demands of cotton monoculture, foreign proposals to diversify agrarian production towards biofuel would have great appeal in Astana, Ashgabat and Tashkent and to a lower extent Astana for those durable financiers happy to wager on the future, especially as a plant indigenous to the area has currently proven itself in trials.
Known in the West as incorrect flax, wild flax, linseed dodder, German sesame and Siberian oilseed, camelina is drawing in increased clinical interest for its oleaginous qualities, with numerous European and American companies currently examining how to produce it in commercial amounts for biofuel. In January Japan Airlines undertook a historic test flight utilizing camelina-based bio-jet fuel, ending up being the first Asian carrier to try out flying on fuel derived from sustainable feedstocks during a one-hour demonstration flight from Tokyo's Haneda Airport. The test was the culmination of a 12-month evaluation of camelina's operational efficiency capability and possible business practicality.
As an alternative energy source, camelina has much to recommend it. It has a high oil content low in saturated fat. In contrast to Central Asia's thirsty "king cotton," camelina is drought-resistant and unsusceptible to spring freezing, requires less fertilizer and herbicides, and can be utilized as a rotation crop with wheat, which would make it of particular interest in Kazakhstan, now Central Asia's major wheat exporter. Another perk of camelina is its tolerance of poorer, less fertile conditions. An acre planted with camelina can produce up to 100 gallons of oil and when planted in rotation with wheat, camelina can increase wheat production by 15 percent. A lot (1000 kg) of camelina will include 350 kg of oil, of which pressing 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 attractive concentration of omega-3 fats that make it a particularly fine livestock feed prospect that is recently getting acknowledgment in the U.S. and Canada. Camelina is quick growing, produces its own natural herbicide (allelopathy) and completes well against weeds when an even crop is developed. According to Britain's Bangor University's Centre for Alternative Land Use, "Camelina might be a perfect low-input crop suitable for bio-diesel production, due to its lower requirements for nitrogen fertilizer than oilseed rape."
Camelina, a branch of the mustard household, is indigenous to both Europe and Central Asia and barely a new crop on the scene: archaeological proof shows it has actually been cultivated in Europe for at least three centuries to produce both vegetable oil and animal fodder.
Field trials of production in Montana, presently the center of U.S. camelina research study, revealed a large range of results of 330-1,700 pounds of seed per acre, with oil content varying in between 29 and 40%. Optimal seeding rates have been figured out to be in the 6-8 lb per acre variety, as the seeds' small size of 400,000 seeds per lb can produce problems in germination to attain an optimal plant density of around 9 plants per sq. ft.
Camelina's potential might enable Uzbekistan to begin breaking out of its most dolorous legacy, the imposition of a cotton monoculture that has warped the country's attempts at agrarian reform considering that attaining independence in 1991. Beginning in the late 19th century, the Russian government identified that Central Asia would become its cotton plantation to feed Moscow's growing fabric market. The procedure was sped up under the Soviets. While Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan were also purchased by Moscow to plant cotton, Uzbekistan in particular was singled out to produce "white gold."
By the end of the 1930s the Soviet Union had actually become self-sufficient in cotton; 5 decades later on it had actually become a significant exporter of cotton, producing more than one-fifth of the world's production, concentrated in Uzbekistan, which produced 70 percent of the Soviet Union's output.
Try as it might to diversify, in the absence of options Tashkent remains wedded to cotton, producing about 3.6 million loads annually, which brings in more than $1 billion while constituting roughly 60 percent of the nation's difficult currency income.
Beginning in the mid-1960s the Soviet government's directives for Central Asian cotton production mostly bankrupted the region'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 irrigation canals, resulting in the significant shrinkage of the rivers' last location, the Aral Sea. The Aral, as soon as the world's fourth-largest inland sea with an area of 26,000 square miles, has actually diminished to one-quarter its original size in one of the 20th century's worst ecological disasters.
And now, the dollars and cents. Dr. Bill Schillinger at Washington State University recently described camelina's business design to Capital Press as: "At 1,400 pounds per acre at 16 cents a pound, camelina would generate $224 per acre; 28-bushel white wheat at $8.23 per bushel would garner $230."
Central Asia has the land, the farms, the watering infrastructure and a modest wage scale in contrast to America or Europe - all that's missing out on is the foreign financial investment. U.S. financiers have the money and access to the knowledge of America's land grant universities. What is certain is that biofuel's market share will grow with time; less certain is who will profit of developing it as a practical issue in Central Asia.
If the recent past is anything to pass it is unlikely to be American and European financiers, focused as they are on Caspian oil and gas.
But while the Japanese flight experiments indicate Asian interest, American investors have the scholastic competence, if they want to follow the Silk Road into establishing a new market. Certainly anything that lessens water usage and pesticides, diversifies crop production and enhances the lot of their agrarian population will receive most careful factor to consider from Central Asia's federal governments, and farming and grease processing plants are not only much cheaper than pipelines, they can be developed faster.
And jatropha's biofuel capacity? Another story for another time.
