The recent discoveries of a International Energy Administration whistleblower that the IEA may have misshaped crucial oil forecasts under intense U.S. pressure is, if real (and whistleblowers rarely come forward to advance their professions), a slow-burning atomic explosion on future international oil production. The Bush administration's actions in pressing the IEA to underplay the rate of decline from existing oil fields while overplaying the opportunities of discovering brand-new reserves have the possible to toss federal governments' long-term planning into mayhem.
Whatever the truth, rising long term international needs appear specific to overtake production in the next years, specifically offered the high and increasing costs of establishing brand-new super-fields such as Kazakhstan's overseas Kashagan and Brazil's southern Atlantic Jupiter and Carioca fields, which will need billions in financial investments before their first barrels of oil are produced.
In such a situation, ingredients and alternatives such as biofuels will play an ever-increasing role by stretching beleaguered production quotas. As market forces and increasing costs drive this innovation to the leading edge, one of the wealthiest prospective production areas has been totally neglected by financiers already - Central Asia. Formerly the USSR's cotton "plantation," the area is poised to become a major gamer in the production of biofuels if adequate foreign financial investment can be procured. Unlike Brazil, where biofuel is made mostly from sugarcane, or the United States, where it is primarily 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 because 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 seclusion and reasonably little hydrocarbon resources relative to their Western Caspian neighbors have actually mostly inhibited their ability to money in on rising global energy demands already. Mountainous Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan stay mostly reliant for their electrical requirements on their Soviet-era hydroelectric facilities, but their increased need to create winter electrical power has led to autumnal and winter season water discharges, in turn seriously affecting the farming of their western downstream neighbors Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan.
What these three downstream countries do have however is a Soviet-era tradition of agricultural production, which in Uzbekistan's and Turkmenistan case was mostly 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 discussions with Central Asian federal government authorities, offered the thirsty demands of cotton monoculture, foreign propositions to diversify agrarian production towards biofuel would have fantastic appeal in Astana, Ashgabat and Tashkent and to a lesser degree Astana for those durable financiers going to bank on the future, specifically as a plant native to the area has currently proven itself in trials.
Known in the West as false flax, wild flax, linseed dodder, German sesame and Siberian oilseed, camelina is drawing in increased scientific interest for its oleaginous qualities, with several European and American companies currently examining how to produce it in business amounts for biofuel. In January Japan Airlines carried out a historic test flight utilizing camelina-based bio-jet fuel, becoming the first Asian provider to explore flying on fuel obtained from sustainable feedstocks during a one-hour presentation flight from Tokyo's Haneda Airport. The test was the conclusion of a 12-month evaluation of camelina's functional efficiency capability and potential industrial practicality.
As an alternative energy source, camelina has much to suggest it. It has a high oil content low in hydrogenated fat. In contrast to Central Asia's thirsty "king cotton," camelina is drought-resistant and immune to spring freezing, requires 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 bonus offer of camelina is its tolerance of poorer, less fertile conditions. An acre sown with camelina can produce as much as 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 include 350 kg of oil, of which pushing can extract 250 kg. Nothing in camelina production is wasted as after processing, the plant's particles can be used for livestock silage. Camelina silage has an especially attractive concentration of omega-3 fatty acids that make it an especially fine livestock feed candidate that is simply now gaining recognition in the U.S. and Canada. Camelina is quick growing, produces its own natural herbicide (allelopathy) and contends well against weeds when an even crop is established. According to Britain's Bangor University's Centre for Alternative Land Use, "Camelina might be an ideal 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 hardly a brand-new crop on the scene: historical proof suggests it has been cultivated in Europe for at least 3 centuries to produce both grease and animal fodder.
Field trials of production in Montana, currently the center of U.S. camelina research, showed a vast array of outcomes of 330-1,700 pounds of seed per acre, with oil content varying between 29 and 40%. Optimal seeding rates have actually been identified to be in the 6-8 pound per acre variety, as the seeds' little size of 400,000 seeds per pound can produce issues in germination to attain 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 distorted the nation's attempts at agrarian reform since 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 textile industry. The procedure was accelerated under the Soviets. While Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan were likewise purchased by Moscow to sow cotton, Uzbekistan in specific was singled out to produce "white gold."
By the end of the 1930s the Soviet Union had ended up being self-sufficient in cotton; five decades later it had actually become a major 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 may to diversify, in the lack of options Tashkent stays wedded to cotton, producing about 3.6 million tons yearly, which generates more than $1 billion while constituting around 60 percent of the country's hard cash income.
Beginning in the mid-1960s the Soviet government's directives for Central Asian cotton production mainly bankrupted the region's scarcest resource, water. Cotton uses about 3.5 acre feet of water per acre of plants, leading Soviet planners to divert ever-increasing volumes of water from the area's 2 main rivers, the Amu Darya and Syr Darya, into inefficient watering canals, resulting in the dramatic shrinking of the rivers' final 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 diminished to one-quarter its initial size in among the 20th century's worst eco-friendly catastrophes.
And now, the dollars and cents. Dr. Bill Schillinger at Washington State University recently explained camelina's company model 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 gather $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 out on is the foreign investment. U.S. financiers have the cash and access to the knowledge of America's land grant universities. What is specific is that biofuel's market share will grow in time; less certain is who will profit of establishing it as a viable issue in Central Asia.
If the current past is anything to go by it is unlikely to be American and European investors, focused as they are on Caspian oil and gas.
But while the Japanese flight experiments indicate Asian interest, American financiers have the academic proficiency, if they want to follow the Silk Road into developing a brand-new market. Certainly anything that reduces water use and pesticides, diversifies crop production and improves the great deal of their agrarian population will receive most cautious factor to consider from Central Asia's governments, and farming and vegetable oil processing plants are not just more affordable than pipelines, they can be built faster.
And jatropha's biofuel potential? Another story for another time.
