The current discoveries of a International Energy Administration whistleblower that the IEA might have misshaped essential oil projections under intense U.S. pressure is, if real (and whistleblowers hardly ever come forward to advance their professions), a slow-burning thermonuclear surge on future international oil production. The Bush administration's actions in pressuring the IEA to underplay the rate of decrease from existing oil fields while overplaying the opportunities of finding new reserves have the possible to toss governments' long-lasting planning into turmoil.
Whatever the reality, rising long term international demands appear specific to outstrip production in the next decade, especially given the high and rising costs 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 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 technology to the forefront, one of the wealthiest potential production areas has actually been totally neglected by financiers already - Central Asia. Formerly the USSR's cotton "plantation," the area is poised to end up being a significant gamer in the production of biofuels if sufficient foreign financial investment can be obtained. Unlike Brazil, where biofuel is made mainly 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 coasts 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 gas.
Farther to the east, in Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, geographical isolation and fairly scant hydrocarbon resources relative to their Western Caspian next-door neighbors have largely prevented their capability to money in on increasing global energy demands already. Mountainous Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan remain mostly dependent for their electrical needs on their Soviet-era hydroelectric facilities, but their increased requirement to create winter electrical energy has actually 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 countries do have however 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 major producer of wheat. Based upon my discussions with Central Asian federal government authorities, offered the thirsty demands of cotton monoculture, foreign propositions to diversify agrarian production towards biofuel would have terrific appeal in Astana, Ashgabat and Tashkent and to a lesser level Astana for those sturdy investors ready to wager on the future, especially as a plant indigenous to the area has already shown itself in trials.
Known in the West as false flax, wild flax, linseed dodder, German sesame and Siberian oilseed, camelina is attracting increased clinical interest for its oleaginous qualities, with a number of European and American business already examining how to produce it in business quantities for biofuel. In January Japan Airlines carried out a historic test flight utilizing camelina-based bio-jet fuel, ending up being the first Asian provider to explore flying on fuel derived from sustainable feedstocks during a one-hour demonstration flight from Tokyo's Haneda Airport. The test was the conclusion of a 12-month assessment of camelina's functional efficiency capability and prospective industrial viability.
As an alternative energy source, camelina has much to recommend 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 used as a rotation crop with wheat, which would make it of specific 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 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 draw out 250 kg. Nothing in camelina production is squandered as after processing, the plant's debris can be utilized for livestock silage. Camelina silage has an especially attractive concentration of omega-3 fats that make it a particularly fine animals feed candidate that is recently getting acknowledgment in the U.S. and Canada. Camelina is quick growing, produces its own natural herbicide (allelopathy) and contends well versus 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 family, is native to both Europe and Central Asia and barely a new crop on the scene: historical evidence suggests it has been cultivated in Europe for at least three centuries to produce both grease 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 lbs of seed per acre, with oil content varying between 29 and 40%. Optimal seeding rates have 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 develop issues in germination to attain an ideal plant density of around 9 plants per sq. ft.
Camelina's capacity could permit Uzbekistan to start breaking out of its most dolorous legacy, the imposition of a cotton monoculture that has distorted the country's efforts at agrarian reform considering that accomplishing self-reliance in 1991. Beginning in the late 19th century, the Russian government figured out that Central Asia would become its cotton plantation to feed Moscow's growing fabric industry. The process was accelerated under the Soviets. While Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan were likewise 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 ended up being self-dependent in cotton; 5 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 may to diversify, in the lack of options Tashkent stays wedded to cotton, producing about 3.6 million tons each year, which generates more than $1 billion while making up roughly 60 percent of the nation's hard cash income.
Beginning in the mid-1960s the Soviet 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 planners to divert ever-increasing volumes of water from the region's 2 main rivers, the Amu Darya and Syr Darya, into inefficient irrigation canals, resulting in the significant shrinking 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 shrunk to one-quarter its initial size in among 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 bring in $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 comparison to America or Europe - all that's missing out on is the foreign investment. U.S. financiers have the cash and access to the expertise of America's land grant universities. What is specific is that biofuel's market share will grow with time; less certain is who will enjoy the benefits of establishing it as a viable concern in Central Asia.
If the recent past is anything to go by it is not likely to be American and European financiers, fixated as they are on Caspian oil and gas.
But while the Japanese flight experiments suggest Asian interest, American investors have the scholastic competence, if they are prepared to follow the Silk Road into establishing a brand-new market. Certainly anything that decreases water usage and pesticides, diversifies crop production and enhances the lot of their agrarian population will receive most cautious consideration from Central Asia's governments, and farming and vegetable oil processing plants are not just much more affordable than pipelines, they can be developed more quickly.
And jatropha curcas's biofuel capacity? Another story for another time.
