The recent discoveries of a International Energy Administration whistleblower that the IEA may have distorted key oil forecasts under intense U.S. pressure is, if true (and whistleblowers hardly ever step forward to advance their professions), a slow-burning thermonuclear surge on future international oil production. The Bush administration's actions in pressing the IEA to underplay the rate of decrease from existing oil fields while overplaying the opportunities of finding brand-new reserves have the potential to toss governments' long-lasting planning into mayhem.
Whatever the reality, increasing long term global demands seem specific to outstrip production in the next years, particularly provided the high and rising expenses 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 financial investments before their very first barrels of oil are produced.
In such a circumstance, ingredients and alternatives such as biofuels will play an ever-increasing function by extending beleaguered production quotas. As market forces and rising costs drive this technology to the leading edge, one of the wealthiest prospective production areas has actually been totally neglected by financiers already - Central Asia. Formerly the USSR's cotton "plantation," the region 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 largely 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 rates, while Turkmenistan is waiting in the wings as an increasing manufacturer of gas.
Farther to the east, in Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, geographical seclusion and fairly little hydrocarbon resources relative to their Western Caspian neighbors have actually mainly inhibited their capability to capitalize increasing global energy needs up to now. Mountainous Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan stay mostly dependent for their electrical needs on their Soviet-era hydroelectric infrastructure, but their heightened need to produce winter electrical power has led to autumnal and winter water discharges, in turn significantly affecting the agriculture of their western downstream neighbors Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan.
What these three downstream countries do have nevertheless 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 ended up being a significant manufacturer of wheat. Based on my conversations with Central Asian government officials, offered the thirsty demands 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 prepared to bet on the future, especially 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 drawing in increased scientific interest for its oleaginous qualities, with a number of European and American companies currently examining how to produce it in business quantities for biofuel. In January Japan Airlines undertook a historic test flight using camelina-based bio-jet fuel, ending up being the first Asian carrier to try out flying on fuel derived from sustainable feedstocks throughout a one-hour presentation flight from Tokyo's Haneda Airport. The test was the culmination of a 12-month assessment of camelina's functional performance ability and potential industrial 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, 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 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 ton (1000 kg) of camelina will contain 350 kg of oil, of which pressing can draw out 250 kg. Nothing in camelina production is lost as after processing, the plant's particles can be used for livestock silage. Camelina silage has a particularly appealing concentration of omega-3 fats that make it a particularly great livestock 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 against weeds when an even crop is established. 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 new crop on the scene: historical proof shows it has actually been cultivated in Europe for a minimum of 3 centuries to produce both grease and animal fodder.
Field trials of production in Montana, currently the center of U.S. camelina research study, showed a wide variety of results of 330-1,700 lbs of seed per acre, with oil material varying 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 develop problems in germination to accomplish an optimal plant density of around 9 plants per sq. ft.
Camelina's capacity might permit Uzbekistan to start breaking out of its most dolorous legacy, the imposition of a cotton monoculture that has deformed the country's attempts at agrarian reform because accomplishing 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 fabric industry. The process was sped up under the Soviets. While Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan were also ordered 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 become self-dependent in cotton; 5 decades later it had actually 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 might to diversify, in the lack of options Tashkent stays wedded to cotton, producing about 3.6 million tons every year, which generates more than $1 billion while making up around 60 percent of the nation's tough currency earnings.
Beginning in the mid-1960s the Soviet federal government's regulations for Central Asian cotton production mainly 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 two main rivers, the Amu Darya and Syr Darya, into inefficient watering canals, resulting in the significant shrinkage of the rivers' last destination, the Aral Sea. The Aral, once the world's fourth-largest inland sea with a location of 26,000 square miles, has actually shrunk to one-quarter its initial size in one of the 20th century's worst environmental disasters.
And now, the dollars and cents. Dr. Bill Schillinger at Washington State University just recently described camelina's business 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 garner $230."
Central Asia has the land, the farms, the watering facilities and a modest wage scale in comparison to America or Europe - all that's missing out on is the foreign investment. U.S. financiers 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 specific is who will gain the benefits of establishing it as a viable issue in Central Asia.
If the current past is anything to pass it is not likely 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 financiers have the academic knowledge, if they are willing to follow the Silk Road into establishing a new market. Certainly anything that decreases water usage and pesticides, diversifies crop production and improves the lot of their agrarian population will get most mindful consideration from Central Asia's governments, and farming and veggie oil processing plants are not just more affordable than pipelines, they can be developed more rapidly.
And jatropha curcas's biofuel potential? Another story for another time.
