The recent revelations of a International Energy Administration whistleblower that the IEA may have misshaped essential oil forecasts under intense U.S. pressure is, if real (and whistleblowers hardly ever come forward to advance their careers), a slow-burning atomic explosion on future global oil production. The Bush administration's actions in pressuring the IEA to underplay the rate of decline from existing oil fields while overplaying the opportunities of finding brand-new reserves have the prospective to toss federal governments' long-term planning into mayhem.
Whatever the reality, increasing long term global demands appear particular to overtake production in the next years, especially provided the high and rising costs of establishing new super-fields such as Kazakhstan's overseas 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 scenario, additives and alternatives such as biofuels will play an ever-increasing role by stretching beleaguered production quotas. As market forces and rising prices drive this innovation to the forefront, among the richest potential production locations has been absolutely ignored by financiers already - Central Asia. Formerly the USSR's cotton "plantation," the area is poised to end up being a major player in the production of biofuels if adequate foreign financial investment can be acquired. Unlike Brazil, where biofuel is made mostly from sugarcane, or the United States, where it is mainly distilled from corn, Central Asia's ace resource is a native plant, Camelina sativa.
Of the former 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 an increasing manufacturer of 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 largely prevented their ability to cash in on rising worldwide energy demands already. Mountainous Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan remain mainly dependent for their electrical requirements on their Soviet-era hydroelectric facilities, but their heightened requirement to generate winter season electrical energy has caused autumnal and winter water discharges, in turn badly affecting the agriculture of their western downstream next-door neighbors Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan.
What these three downstream nations do have however is a Soviet-era legacy 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 ended up being a significant producer of wheat. Based on my conversations with Central Asian federal government officials, provided the thirsty demands of cotton monoculture, foreign propositions to diversify agrarian production towards biofuel would have great appeal in Astana, Ashgabat and Tashkent and to a lower extent Astana for those sturdy investors ready to bank on the future, specifically as a plant indigenous to the area has already proven itself in trials.
Known in the West as incorrect flax, wild flax, linseed dodder, German sesame and Siberian oilseed, camelina is attracting increased scientific interest for its oleaginous qualities, with numerous European and American companies already examining how to produce it in industrial amounts for biofuel. In January Japan Airlines carried out a historic test flight utilizing camelina-based bio-jet fuel, ending up being the first Asian carrier to experiment with flying on fuel stemmed 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 operational efficiency capability and possible industrial practicality.
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 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 planted with camelina can produce approximately 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 contain 350 kg of oil, of which pushing can draw out 250 kg. Nothing in camelina production is squandered as after processing, the plant's particles can be used for livestock silage. Camelina silage has a particularly appealing concentration of omega-3 fatty acids that make it an especially great livestock feed candidate that is recently gaining acknowledgment in the U.S. and Canada. Camelina is fast growing, produces its own natural herbicide (allelopathy) and completes 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 appropriate for bio-diesel production, due to its lower requirements for nitrogen fertilizer than oilseed rape."
Camelina, a branch of the mustard household, is native to both Europe and Central Asia and barely a brand-new crop on the scene: historical evidence suggests it has actually been cultivated in Europe for a minimum of three millennia to produce both veggie oil and animal fodder.
Field trials of production in Montana, currently the center of U.S. camelina research study, revealed a vast array of outcomes of 330-1,700 pounds of seed per acre, with oil content varying in between 29 and 40%. Optimal seeding rates have actually been figured out 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 accomplish an optimal plant density of around 9 plants per sq. ft.
Camelina's potential could permit Uzbekistan to start breaking out of its most dolorous tradition, the imposition of a cotton monoculture that has warped the country's efforts at agrarian reform given that accomplishing independence 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 purchased 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-sufficient in cotton; five years later it had actually 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 lots yearly, 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 government's regulations for Central Asian cotton production largely 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 two primary rivers, the Amu Darya and Syr Darya, into inefficient watering canals, resulting in the remarkable shrinkage of the rivers' final 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 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 just recently explained camelina's organization design to Capital Press as: "At 1,400 pounds per acre at 16 cents a pound, camelina would generate $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 is the foreign financial investment. U.S. investors have the cash and access to the know-how of America's land grant universities. What is certain is that biofuel's market share will grow in time; less particular is who will profit of establishing it as a feasible concern in Central Asia.
If the recent 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 show Asian interest, American investors have the scholastic knowledge, if they are ready to follow the Silk Road into developing a new market. Certainly anything that decreases water use and pesticides, diversifies crop production and improves the great deal of their agrarian population will get most cautious factor to consider from Central Asia's governments, and farming and vegetable oil processing plants are not only more affordable than pipelines, they can be constructed more quickly.
And jatropha's biofuel potential? Another story for another time.
