The recent discoveries of a International Energy Administration whistleblower that the IEA might have distorted essential oil forecasts under extreme U.S. pressure is, if real (and whistleblowers hardly ever come forward to advance their careers), a slow-burning atomic explosion on future worldwide oil production. The Bush administration's actions in pressing the IEA to underplay the rate of decline from existing oil fields while overplaying the opportunities of finding new reserves have the prospective to throw governments' long-term planning into chaos.
Whatever the truth, rising long term international needs appear specific to outstrip production in the next years, specifically provided the high and increasing 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 costs drive this innovation to the leading edge, one of the wealthiest potential production locations has been completely ignored by investors already - Central Asia. Formerly the USSR's cotton "plantation," the region is poised to become a significant gamer in the production of biofuels if sufficient foreign investment can be procured. Unlike Brazil, where biofuel is produced mostly from sugarcane, or the United States, where it is mainly distilled from corn, Central Asia's ace resource is an indigenous plant, Camelina sativa.
Of the former 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 rates, 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 reasonably little hydrocarbon resources relative to their Western Caspian next-door neighbors have largely hindered their ability to capitalize rising global energy demands up to now. Mountainous Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan remain mostly dependent for their electrical needs on their Soviet-era hydroelectric facilities, but their heightened requirement to generate winter electricity has resulted in autumnal and winter season water discharges, in turn badly affecting the farming of their western downstream next-door neighbors Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan.
What these 3 downstream countries 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, beginning in the 1950s with Khrushchev's "Virgin Lands" programs, has actually become a significant manufacturer of wheat. Based upon my conversations with Central Asian federal government authorities, offered the thirsty needs of cotton monoculture, foreign propositions to diversify agrarian production towards biofuel would have fantastic appeal in Astana, Ashgabat and Tashkent and to a lesser degree Astana for those hardy financiers ready to bank on the future, particularly as a plant native to the region has currently proven itself in trials.
Known in the West as false flax, wild flax, linseed dodder, German sesame and Siberian oilseed, camelina is bring in increased scientific interest for its oleaginous qualities, with a number of European and American business already investigating how to produce it in commercial amounts for biofuel. In January Japan Airlines undertook a historical test flight using camelina-based bio-jet fuel, ending up being the first Asian carrier to explore flying on fuel derived 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 operational performance ability and potential business viability.
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, needs 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 perk of camelina is its tolerance of poorer, less fertile conditions. An acre planted with camelina can produce up to 100 gallons of oil and when planted in rotation with wheat, camelina can increase wheat production by 15 percent. A load (1000 kg) of camelina will include 350 kg of oil, of which pressing can extract 250 kg. Nothing in camelina production is squandered as after processing, the plant's debris can be used for livestock silage. Camelina silage has an especially attractive concentration of omega-3 fatty acids that make it an especially great livestock feed candidate that is simply now 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 could 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 native to both Europe and Central Asia and barely a new crop on the scene: historical proof indicates it has actually been cultivated in Europe for a minimum of 3 millennia 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 vast array of outcomes of 330-1,700 lbs of seed per acre, with oil material differing between 29 and 40%. Optimal seeding rates have been identified to be in the 6-8 lb per acre range, as the seeds' small size of 400,000 seeds per lb can develop problems in germination to accomplish an ideal plant density of around 9 plants per sq. ft.
Camelina's capacity might permit Uzbekistan to start breaking out of its most dolorous tradition, the imposition of a cotton monoculture that has warped the nation's efforts at agrarian reform given that accomplishing 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 market. The procedure was sped up under the Soviets. While Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan were also purchased 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 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 absence of alternatives Tashkent stays wedded to cotton, producing about 3.6 million heaps every year, which generates more than $1 billion while constituting approximately 60 percent of the country's hard cash earnings.
Beginning in the mid-1960s the Soviet government's directives 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 2 main rivers, the Amu Darya and Syr Darya, into ineffective irrigation canals, resulting in the dramatic shrinkage of the rivers' final destination, the Aral Sea. The Aral, once the world's fourth-largest inland sea with a location of 26,000 square miles, has actually shrunk to one-quarter its original size in one of the 20th century's worst ecological 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 amass $230."
Central Asia has the land, the farms, the irrigation infrastructure 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 money and access to the proficiency of America's land grant universities. What is certain is that biofuel's market share will grow gradually; less certain is who will reap the benefits of establishing it as a practical concern in Central Asia.
If the recent past is anything to go by it is not likely to be American and European investors, fixated as they are on Caspian oil and gas.
But while the Japanese flight experiments indicate Asian interest, American investors have the academic knowledge, if they are ready to follow the Silk Road into establishing a brand-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 mindful consideration from Central Asia's governments, and farming and veggie oil processing plants are not just much cheaper than pipelines, they can be constructed quicker.
And jatropha curcas's biofuel potential? Another story for another time.
