The current discoveries of a International Energy Administration whistleblower that the IEA might have distorted crucial oil projections under intense U.S. pressure is, if real (and whistleblowers rarely come forward to advance their professions), a slow-burning atomic surge on future global 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 prospective to throw federal governments' long-term planning into turmoil.
Whatever the truth, increasing long term worldwide needs appear certain to overtake production in the next years, especially given the high and increasing expenses of developing brand-new super-fields such as Kazakhstan's offshore Kashagan and Brazil's southern Atlantic Jupiter and Carioca fields, which will require billions in investments before their very first barrels of oil are produced.
In such a scenario, ingredients and replacements such as biofuels will play an ever-increasing function by stretching beleaguered production quotas. As market forces and rising prices drive this innovation to the forefront, among the wealthiest prospective production locations has been totally ignored by financiers up to now - Central Asia. Formerly the USSR's cotton "plantation," the area is poised to become a major player in the production of biofuels if enough foreign investment can be procured. Unlike Brazil, where biofuel is made mainly from sugarcane, or the United States, where it is primarily 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 coasts of the Caspian, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan have seen their economies boom due to the fact that of record-high energy prices, while Turkmenistan is waiting in the wings as a rising manufacturer of gas.
Farther to the east, in Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, geographical seclusion and relatively little hydrocarbon resources relative to their Western Caspian next-door neighbors have mainly prevented their capability to cash in on increasing international energy demands up to now. Mountainous Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan remain largely dependent for their electrical needs on their Soviet-era hydroelectric facilities, but their increased requirement to create winter season electrical power has actually led to autumnal and winter season water discharges, in turn severely affecting 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 largely directed towards cotton production, while Kazakhstan, beginning in the 1950s with Khrushchev's "Virgin Lands" programs, has actually ended up being a significant manufacturer of wheat. Based on my discussions with Central Asian federal government authorities, provided the thirsty demands of cotton monoculture, foreign proposals to diversify agrarian production towards biofuel would have excellent appeal in Astana, Ashgabat and Tashkent and to a lesser degree Astana for those sturdy financiers ready to bank 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 attracting increased scientific interest for its oleaginous qualities, with numerous European and American business already examining how to produce it in industrial quantities for biofuel. In January Japan Airlines undertook a historical test flight using camelina-based bio-jet fuel, becoming the very first Asian carrier to try out flying on fuel obtained from sustainable feedstocks during a one-hour demonstration flight from Tokyo's Haneda Airport. The test was the culmination of a 12-month evaluation of camelina's operational 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, needs less fertilizer and herbicides, and can be used as a rotation crop with wheat, which would make it of particular 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 approximately 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 pushing can draw out 250 kg. Nothing in camelina production is squandered as after processing, the plant's debris can be used for livestock silage. Camelina silage has a particularly attractive concentration of omega-3 fatty acids that make it an especially fine animals feed prospect 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 could be an ideal 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 indigenous to both Europe and Central Asia and hardly a brand-new crop on the scene: historical evidence shows it has actually been cultivated in Europe for a minimum of 3 centuries to produce both vegetable oil and animal fodder.
Field trials of production in Montana, currently the center of U.S. camelina research, revealed a broad variety of results of 330-1,700 pounds of seed per acre, with oil material varying in between 29 and 40%. Optimal seeding rates have actually been figured out to be in the 6-8 pound per acre variety, as the seeds' little size of 400,000 seeds per pound can create issues in germination to attain an optimum plant density of around 9 plants per sq. ft.
Camelina's potential could permit Uzbekistan to start breaking out of its most dolorous legacy, the imposition of a cotton monoculture that has distorted the country's attempts at agrarian reform given that accomplishing independence 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 process was accelerated under the Soviets. While Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan were likewise 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 become self-dependent in cotton; 5 years later on it had actually become a significant exporter of cotton, producing more than one-fifth of the world's production, focused in Uzbekistan, which produced 70 percent of the Soviet Union's output.
Try as it may to diversify, in the absence of options Tashkent stays wedded to cotton, producing about 3.6 million tons every year, which generates more than $1 billion while making up approximately 60 percent of the country's hard currency earnings.
Beginning in the mid-1960s the Soviet federal government's regulations for Central Asian cotton production largely bankrupted the region's scarcest resource, water. Cotton utilizes about 3.5 acre feet of water per acre of plants, leading Soviet planners 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 dramatic shrinking of the rivers' last location, the Aral Sea. The Aral, when the world's fourth-largest inland sea with an area of 26,000 square miles, has shrunk to one-quarter its original size in one of the 20th century's worst ecological catastrophes.
And now, the dollars and cents. Dr. Bill Schillinger at Washington State University just recently described 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 amass $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 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 over time; less particular is who will enjoy the benefits of establishing it as a practical issue in Central Asia.
If the recent past is anything to go by 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 suggest Asian interest, American investors have the academic expertise, if they are prepared to follow the Silk Road into developing a brand-new market. Certainly anything that reduces water use and pesticides, diversifies crop production and enhances the lot of their agrarian population will receive most mindful factor to consider from Central Asia's federal governments, and farming and grease processing plants are not only much less expensive than pipelines, they can be developed more quickly.
And jatropha's biofuel capacity? Another story for another time.
