The current revelations 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 come forward to advance their careers), a slow-burning atomic surge on future worldwide oil production. The Bush administration's actions in pushing the IEA to underplay the rate of decline 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 worldwide demands seem certain to overtake production in the next decade, especially offered the high and increasing 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 first barrels of oil are produced.
In such a situation, additives and substitutes such as biofuels will play an ever-increasing function by extending beleaguered production quotas. As market forces and rising prices drive this innovation to the forefront, among the wealthiest potential production locations has actually been totally ignored by financiers up to now - Central Asia. Formerly the USSR's cotton "plantation," the area is poised to end up being a significant player in the production of biofuels if sufficient foreign investment can be procured. Unlike Brazil, where biofuel is produced mainly 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 previous Soviet Caucasian and Central Asian republics, those clustered around the shores of the Caspian, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan have actually seen their economies boom since of record-high energy costs, while Turkmenistan is waiting in the wings as a rising producer of natural gas.
Farther to the east, in Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, geographical seclusion and reasonably scant hydrocarbon resources relative to their Western Caspian next-door neighbors have actually largely prevented their capability to cash in on increasing international energy demands up to now. Mountainous Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan stay mostly dependent for their electrical requirements on their Soviet-era hydroelectric facilities, but their heightened need to create winter season electricity has actually resulted in autumnal and winter water discharges, in turn badly affecting the farming of their western downstream neighbors Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan.
What these three downstream nations do have nevertheless is a Soviet-era legacy of farming 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 producer of wheat. Based on my conversations with Central Asian government authorities, offered the thirsty needs of cotton monoculture, foreign propositions to diversify agrarian production towards biofuel would have terrific appeal in Astana, Ashgabat and Tashkent and to a lesser degree Astana for those hardy investors happy to bank on the future, specifically as a plant indigenous to the region has already shown itself in trials.
Known in the West as incorrect flax, wild flax, linseed dodder, German sesame and Siberian oilseed, camelina is bring in increased clinical interest for its oleaginous qualities, with numerous European and American companies already examining how to produce it in business quantities for biofuel. In January Japan Airlines carried out a historical test flight utilizing camelina-based bio-jet fuel, becoming the very first Asian carrier to try out flying on fuel originated from sustainable feedstocks during a one-hour demonstration flight from Tokyo's Haneda Airport. The test was the culmination of a 12-month examination of camelina's operational performance ability and possible commercial viability.
As an alternative energy source, camelina has much to recommend 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 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 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 consist of 350 kg of oil, of which pushing can extract 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 appealing concentration of omega-3 fatty acids that make it a particularly fine 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 completes 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 barely a brand-new crop on the scene: archaeological evidence suggests it has been cultivated in Europe for a minimum of 3 centuries to produce both vegetable oil and animal fodder.
Field trials of production in Montana, presently the center of U.S. camelina research study, showed a broad range of outcomes of 330-1,700 lbs of seed per acre, with oil material varying in between 29 and 40%. Optimal seeding rates have actually been determined to be in the 6-8 pound per acre range, as the seeds' small size of 400,000 seeds per lb can develop problems in germination to accomplish an optimum plant density of around 9 plants per sq. ft.
Camelina's potential could enable Uzbekistan to start breaking out of its most dolorous legacy, the imposition of a cotton monoculture that has deformed the nation's attempts at agrarian reform since 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 fabric industry. The procedure 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 become self-sufficient in cotton; 5 decades later on it had become a major 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 lack of options Tashkent remains 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 nation's hard cash earnings.
Beginning in the mid-1960s the Soviet federal government's regulations for Central Asian cotton production mostly bankrupted the region's scarcest resource, water. Cotton utilizes 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 primary rivers, the Amu Darya and Syr Darya, into ineffective irrigation canals, resulting in the significant shrinking 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 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 described camelina's company 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 garner $230."
Central Asia has the land, the farms, the watering infrastructure and a modest wage scale in contrast to America or Europe - all that's missing out on is the foreign investment. U.S. financiers have the cash and access to the proficiency of America's land grant universities. What is specific is that biofuel's market share will grow over time; less specific is who will enjoy the benefits of developing it as a feasible concern in Central Asia.
If the recent past is anything to pass it is unlikely to be American and European investors, fixated as they are on Caspian oil and gas.
But while the Japanese flight experiments show Asian interest, American investors have the scholastic competence, if they want to follow the Silk Road into establishing a brand-new market. Certainly anything that reduces water usage and pesticides, diversifies crop production and enhances the great deal of their agrarian population will get most careful factor to consider from Central Asia's federal governments, and farming and veggie oil processing plants are not just much more affordable than pipelines, they can be built more quickly.
And jatropha curcas's biofuel capacity? Another story for another time.
