The recent discoveries of a International Energy Administration whistleblower that the IEA might have distorted crucial oil forecasts under intense U.S. pressure is, if true (and whistleblowers seldom step forward to advance their careers), a slow-burning thermonuclear explosion on future worldwide 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-term planning into mayhem.
Whatever the truth, rising long term global demands appear particular to overtake production in the next decade, especially offered the high and rising expenses of developing brand-new super-fields such as Kazakhstan's offshore Kashagan and Brazil's southern Atlantic Jupiter and Carioca fields, which will need billions in investments before their first barrels of oil are produced.
In such a circumstance, ingredients and alternatives such as biofuels will play an ever-increasing role by stretching beleaguered production quotas. As market forces and increasing rates drive this innovation to the leading edge, among the richest prospective production locations has been absolutely neglected by financiers up to now - Central Asia. Formerly the USSR's cotton "plantation," the area is poised to become a significant gamer in the production of biofuels if sufficient foreign investment can be obtained. Unlike Brazil, where biofuel is produced largely 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 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 rates, while Turkmenistan is waiting in the wings as an increasing producer of natural gas.
Farther to the east, in Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, geographical seclusion and relatively little hydrocarbon resources relative to their Western Caspian neighbors have actually largely hindered their capability to cash in on rising global energy demands up to now. Mountainous Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan remain mostly dependent for their electrical needs on their Soviet-era hydroelectric infrastructure, but their increased need to produce winter season electricity has actually led to autumnal and winter season water discharges, in turn significantly impacting the farming 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 mainly 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 upon my discussions with Central Asian federal government authorities, offered the thirsty demands of cotton monoculture, foreign proposals to diversify agrarian production towards biofuel would have fantastic appeal in Astana, Ashgabat and Tashkent and to a lesser level Astana for those hardy investors ready to bank 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 bring in increased scientific interest for its oleaginous qualities, with several European and American companies currently investigating how to produce it in commercial amounts for biofuel. In January Japan Airlines carried out a historic test flight using camelina-based bio-jet fuel, ending up being the first Asian carrier to try out flying on fuel originated from sustainable feedstocks throughout a one-hour demonstration flight from Tokyo's Haneda Airport. The test was the conclusion of a 12-month evaluation of camelina's functional efficiency ability and possible business practicality.
As an alternative energy source, camelina has much to advise 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 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 pressing can extract 250 kg. Nothing in camelina production is lost as after processing, the plant's debris can be used for livestock silage. Camelina silage has a particularly appealing concentration of omega-3 fats that make it an especially fine livestock feed candidate that is recently gaining recognition in the U.S. and Canada. Camelina is quick growing, produces its own natural herbicide (allelopathy) and competes 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 ideal for bio-diesel production, due to its lower requirements for nitrogen fertilizer than oilseed rape."
Camelina, a branch of the mustard family, is native to both Europe and Central Asia and hardly a brand-new crop on the scene: archaeological proof indicates it has actually been cultivated in Europe for at least 3 millennia to produce both veggie oil and animal fodder.
Field trials of production in Montana, presently the center of U.S. camelina research, revealed a large range of results of 330-1,700 pounds of seed per acre, with oil material differing in between 29 and 40%. Optimal seeding rates have been identified to be in the 6-8 pound per acre range, as the seeds' little size of 400,000 seeds per pound can develop issues in germination to attain an optimal plant density of around 9 plants per sq. ft.
Camelina's potential might allow Uzbekistan to begin breaking out of its most dolorous legacy, the imposition of a cotton monoculture that has deformed the nation's efforts at agrarian reform because achieving self-reliance in 1991. Beginning in the late 19th century, the Russian federal government identified that Central Asia would become its cotton plantation to feed Moscow's growing textile market. The procedure was accelerated under the Soviets. While Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan were also ordered 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 actually ended up being self-sufficient in cotton; five decades later it had actually ended up being 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 lack of alternatives Tashkent remains wedded to cotton, producing about 3.6 million loads every year, which brings in more than $1 billion while making up around 60 percent of the country's difficult currency earnings.
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 coordinators to divert ever-increasing volumes of water from the region's 2 main rivers, the Amu Darya and Syr Darya, into ineffective watering canals, leading to the dramatic shrinkage of the rivers' last location, the Aral Sea. The Aral, when the world's fourth-largest inland sea with a location of 26,000 square miles, has actually 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 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 gather $230."
Central Asia has the land, the farms, the watering facilities 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 cash and access to the competence of America's land grant universities. What is specific is that biofuel's market share will grow with time; less specific is who will gain the benefits of establishing it as a feasible concern in Central Asia.
If the current 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 suggest Asian interest, American financiers have the academic know-how, 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 improves the great deal of their agrarian population will receive most cautious consideration from Central Asia's federal governments, and farming and vegetable oil processing plants are not just more affordable than pipelines, they can be built more rapidly.
And jatropha curcas's biofuel potential? Another story for another time.
