The current discoveries of a International Energy Administration whistleblower that the IEA may have distorted crucial oil forecasts under extreme U.S. pressure is, if real (and whistleblowers seldom step forward to advance their professions), a slow-burning atomic explosion 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 finding new reserves have the potential to toss governments' long-lasting planning into turmoil.
Whatever the truth, rising long term global demands seem specific to overtake production in the next years, specifically provided the high and rising expenses of establishing brand-new super-fields such as Kazakhstan's offshore Kashagan and Brazil's southern Atlantic Jupiter and Carioca fields, which will require 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 extending beleaguered production quotas. As market forces and increasing prices drive this technology to the forefront, among the wealthiest potential production areas has actually been completely overlooked 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 investment can be procured. Unlike Brazil, where biofuel is made mainly from sugarcane, or the United States, where it is mostly distilled from corn, Central Asia's ace resource is an indigenous 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 producer of natural gas.
Farther to the east, in Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, geographical isolation and relatively little hydrocarbon resources relative to their Western Caspian next-door neighbors have actually mostly hindered their ability to cash in on increasing global energy demands already. Mountainous Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan remain mostly dependent for their electrical needs on their Soviet-era hydroelectric infrastructure, however their increased need to generate winter season electrical energy has caused autumnal and winter water discharges, in turn badly affecting the agriculture of their western downstream neighbors Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan.
What these three downstream nations do have however is a Soviet-era tradition of farming production, which in Uzbekistan's and Turkmenistan case was largely directed towards cotton production, while Kazakhstan, starting in the 1950s with Khrushchev's "Virgin Lands" programs, has become a significant producer of wheat. Based upon my conversations with Central Asian government officials, offered the thirsty needs of cotton monoculture, foreign propositions to diversify agrarian production towards biofuel would have excellent appeal in Astana, Ashgabat and Tashkent and to a lesser degree Astana for those hardy financiers ready to wager on the future, especially as a plant indigenous to the region 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 clinical interest for its oleaginous qualities, with several European and American business currently investigating how to produce it in industrial quantities for biofuel. In January Japan Airlines carried out a historical test flight utilizing camelina-based bio-jet fuel, ending up being the very first Asian carrier to explore flying on fuel obtained from sustainable feedstocks during a one-hour demonstration flight from Tokyo's Haneda Airport. The test was the conclusion of a 12-month evaluation of camelina's functional performance ability and possible commercial viability.
As an alternative energy source, camelina has much to suggest 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 immune to spring freezing, needs 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 bonus of camelina is its tolerance of poorer, less fertile conditions. An acre sown 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 heap (1000 kg) of camelina will consist of 350 kg of oil, of which pushing can extract 250 kg. Nothing in camelina production is squandered as after processing, the plant's particles can be utilized for livestock silage. Camelina silage has an especially attractive concentration of omega-3 fats that make it a particularly fine animals feed candidate that is recently acquiring recognition in the U.S. and Canada. Camelina is fast growing, produces its own natural herbicide (allelopathy) and contends well versus 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 hardly a brand-new crop on the scene: historical evidence shows 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, revealed a vast array of outcomes of 330-1,700 lbs of seed per acre, with oil content varying in 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 lb can create problems in germination to achieve an optimum plant density of around 9 plants per sq. ft.
Camelina's capacity might allow 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 because attaining independence in 1991. Beginning in the late 19th century, the Russian federal government figured out that Central Asia would become its cotton plantation to feed Moscow's growing textile industry. The procedure was sped up under the Soviets. While Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan were likewise 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 actually ended up being self-dependent in cotton; five decades later it had 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 may to diversify, in the absence of alternatives Tashkent stays wedded to cotton, producing about 3.6 million loads yearly, which generates more than $1 billion while making up roughly 60 percent of the country's hard currency earnings.
Beginning in the mid-1960s the Soviet government's directives for Central Asian cotton production largely bankrupted the area's scarcest resource, water. Cotton uses 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 primary rivers, the Amu Darya and Syr Darya, into ineffective irrigation canals, resulting in the dramatic shrinkage of the rivers' last location, the Aral Sea. The Aral, as soon as the world's fourth-largest inland sea with a location of 26,000 square miles, has diminished to one-quarter its original size in among the 20th century's worst environmental catastrophes.
And now, the dollars and cents. Dr. Bill Schillinger at Washington State University just recently described camelina's company 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 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 is the foreign investment. U.S. investors have the money and access to the expertise of America's land grant universities. What is certain is that biofuel's market share will grow gradually; less particular is who will reap the advantages of establishing it as a viable concern 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 scholastic know-how, if they are willing to follow the Silk Road into developing a brand-new market. Certainly anything that decreases water usage and pesticides, diversifies crop production and enhances the lot of their agrarian population will get most cautious factor to consider from Central Asia's federal governments, and farming and grease processing plants are not only much more affordable than pipelines, they can be built faster.
And jatropha curcas's biofuel potential? Another story for another time.
