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 real (and whistleblowers seldom come forward to advance their professions), a slow-burning atomic explosion on future worldwide oil production. The Bush administration's actions in pressuring the IEA to underplay the rate of decrease from existing oil fields while overplaying the possibilities of discovering brand-new reserves have the potential to toss governments' long-term planning into turmoil.
Whatever the truth, rising long term global needs appear specific to outstrip production in the next decade, specifically provided the high and increasing costs 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 very first barrels of oil are produced.
In such a scenario, additives and alternatives 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 leading edge, among the richest prospective production areas has been absolutely ignored by investors 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 investment can be acquired. Unlike Brazil, where biofuel is made mainly from sugarcane, or the United States, where it is mainly distilled from corn, Central Asia's ace resource is an indigenous plant, Camelina sativa.
Of the previous Soviet Caucasian and Central Asian republics, those clustered around the shores of the Caspian, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan have seen their economies boom because of record-high energy costs, 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 fairly scant hydrocarbon resources relative to their Western Caspian neighbors have actually largely prevented their ability to capitalize rising worldwide energy needs up to now. Mountainous Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan remain mainly reliant for their electrical requirements on their Soviet-era hydroelectric facilities, however their heightened need to produce winter electrical energy has actually caused autumnal and winter water discharges, in turn significantly affecting the agriculture of their western downstream next-door neighbors Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan.
What these 3 downstream countries do have nevertheless is a Soviet-era tradition of agricultural production, which in Uzbekistan's and Turkmenistan case was largely directed towards cotton production, while Kazakhstan, beginning in the 1950s with Khrushchev's "Virgin Lands" programs, has ended up being a significant producer of wheat. Based upon my discussions with Central Asian government authorities, provided the thirsty needs 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 happy to wager on the future, particularly as a plant indigenous to the area has actually already proven itself in trials.
Known in the West as false flax, wild flax, linseed dodder, German sesame and Siberian oilseed, camelina is bring in increased clinical interest for its oleaginous qualities, with several European and American companies currently investigating how to produce it in industrial amounts 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 try out flying on fuel stemmed from sustainable feedstocks throughout a one-hour demonstration flight from Tokyo's Haneda Airport. The test was the culmination of a 12-month assessment of camelina's functional performance capability and prospective business viability.
As an alternative energy source, camelina has much to recommend it. It has a high oil material 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 major wheat exporter. Another reward 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 extract 250 kg. Nothing in camelina production is wasted as after processing, the plant's particles can be used for animals silage. Camelina silage has an especially attractive concentration of omega-3 fatty acids that make it an especially great animals feed prospect that is recently acquiring acknowledgment 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 ideal 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: historical evidence indicates it has actually been cultivated in Europe for at least 3 centuries to produce both grease and animal fodder.
Field trials of production in Montana, presently the center of U.S. camelina research study, revealed a large variety of outcomes of 330-1,700 lbs of seed per acre, with oil material differing between 29 and 40%. Optimal seeding rates have been determined to be in the 6-8 pound per acre range, as the seeds' little size of 400,000 seeds per lb can create issues in germination to attain an optimum plant density of around 9 plants per sq. ft.
Camelina's capacity could permit Uzbekistan to start breaking out of its most dolorous tradition, the imposition of a cotton monoculture that has deformed the nation's efforts at agrarian reform given that accomplishing self-reliance in 1991. Beginning in the late 19th century, the Russian federal government determined that Central Asia would become its cotton plantation to feed Moscow's growing textile market. The process was sped up under the Soviets. While Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan were also ordered by Moscow to sow cotton, Uzbekistan in particular was singled out to produce "white gold."
By the end of the 1930s the Soviet Union had actually ended up being self-sufficient in cotton; 5 decades later it had become a major 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 lack of alternatives Tashkent remains wedded to cotton, producing about 3.6 million loads annually, which brings in more than $1 billion while constituting around 60 percent of the country's tough currency earnings.
Beginning in the mid-1960s the Soviet federal government's regulations 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 organizers to divert ever-increasing volumes of water from the region's 2 main rivers, the Amu Darya and Syr Darya, into ineffective irrigation canals, leading to the dramatic shrinking of the rivers' final destination, the Aral Sea. The Aral, once the world's fourth-largest inland sea with a location of 26,000 square miles, has shrunk to one-quarter its initial size in among the 20th century's worst eco-friendly disasters.
And now, the dollars and cents. Dr. Bill Schillinger at Washington State University recently explained camelina's business 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 comparison to America or Europe - all that's missing out on is the foreign financial investment. U.S. investors 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 in time; less certain is who will profit of developing it as a viable concern in Central Asia.
If the current past is anything to go by it is not likely to be American and European investors, focused as they are on Caspian oil and gas.
But while the Japanese flight experiments show Asian interest, American investors have the scholastic knowledge, if they are prepared to follow the Silk Road into developing a new market. Certainly anything that reduces water use and pesticides, diversifies crop production and improves the lot of their agrarian population will get most careful consideration from Central Asia's federal governments, and farming and grease processing plants are not only more affordable than pipelines, they can be constructed faster.
And jatropha's biofuel capacity? Another story for another time.
