The current discoveries of a International Energy Administration whistleblower that the IEA may have misshaped crucial oil forecasts under extreme U.S. pressure is, if true (and whistleblowers seldom step forward to advance their professions), a slow-burning atomic surge on future international oil production. The Bush administration's actions in pressing the IEA to underplay the rate of decrease from existing oil fields while overplaying the opportunities of discovering new reserves have the prospective to toss governments' long-term planning into turmoil.
Whatever the truth, rising long term worldwide needs seem certain to overtake production in the next decade, particularly offered the high and rising expenses of developing 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 very first barrels of oil are produced.
In such a scenario, ingredients and replacements such as biofuels will play an ever-increasing function by extending beleaguered production quotas. As market forces and increasing costs drive this innovation to the forefront, among the richest potential production areas has actually been completely neglected by financiers up to now - Central Asia. Formerly the USSR's cotton "plantation," the area is poised to become a significant gamer in the production of biofuels if enough foreign financial investment can be procured. Unlike Brazil, where biofuel is produced 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 due to the fact that 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 seclusion and fairly scant hydrocarbon resources relative to their Western Caspian next-door neighbors have actually mostly hindered their ability to capitalize rising global energy demands already. Mountainous Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan remain mainly reliant for their electrical requirements on their Soviet-era hydroelectric facilities, however their increased requirement to create winter electrical energy has caused autumnal and winter water discharges, in turn seriously affecting the agriculture of their western downstream next-door neighbors Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan.
What these 3 downstream nations do have nevertheless is a Soviet-era tradition 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 ended up being a significant producer of wheat. Based on my conversations with Central Asian government officials, offered the thirsty needs of cotton monoculture, foreign proposals to diversify agrarian production towards biofuel would have terrific appeal in Astana, Ashgabat and Tashkent and to a lower degree Astana for those sturdy financiers going to bank on the future, specifically as a plant native to the region has actually currently proven itself in trials.
Known in the West as incorrect flax, wild flax, linseed dodder, German sesame and Siberian oilseed, camelina is attracting increased clinical interest for its oleaginous qualities, with several European and American business already examining how to produce it in industrial quantities for biofuel. In January Japan Airlines carried out a historic test flight utilizing camelina-based bio-jet fuel, becoming the first Asian provider 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 conclusion of a 12-month evaluation of camelina's operational performance ability and prospective commercial viability.
As an alternative energy source, camelina has much to advise 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 unsusceptible 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 significant wheat exporter. Another reward 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 load (1000 kg) of camelina will consist of 350 kg of oil, of which pressing can draw out 250 kg. Nothing in camelina production is wasted as after processing, the plant's debris can be utilized for animals silage. Camelina silage has a particularly attractive concentration of omega-3 fatty acids that make it an especially great 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 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 native to both Europe and Central Asia and hardly a new crop on the scene: historical proof shows it has been cultivated in Europe for at least 3 centuries to produce both veggie oil and animal fodder.
Field trials of production in Montana, currently the center of U.S. camelina research study, showed a large range of results of 330-1,700 pounds of seed per acre, with oil content differing in between 29 and 40%. Optimal seeding rates have been figured out to be in the 6-8 pound per acre variety, as the seeds' small size of 400,000 seeds per pound can create problems in germination to accomplish an ideal plant density of around 9 plants per sq. ft.
Camelina's potential might enable Uzbekistan to begin breaking out of its most dolorous tradition, 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 determined 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 likewise ordered by Moscow to plant cotton, Uzbekistan in particular 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; 5 years 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 absence of options Tashkent remains wedded to cotton, producing about 3.6 million loads each year, which generates more than $1 billion while constituting approximately 60 percent of the nation's hard cash income.
Beginning in the mid-1960s the Soviet federal government's directives for Central Asian cotton production mainly bankrupted the region's scarcest resource, water. Cotton uses about 3.5 acre feet of water per acre of plants, leading Soviet organizers to divert ever-increasing volumes of water from the area's 2 main rivers, the Amu Darya and Syr Darya, into inefficient irrigation canals, resulting in the remarkable shrinkage of the rivers' final destination, the Aral Sea. The Aral, when the world's fourth-largest inland sea with an area of 26,000 square miles, has actually shrunk to one-quarter its original size in one of 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 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 garner $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 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 particular is that biofuel's market share will grow with time; less particular is who will enjoy the benefits of developing it as a viable concern in Central Asia.
If the current 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 indicate Asian interest, American investors have the scholastic know-how, if they are ready to follow the Silk Road into developing a new market. Certainly anything that reduces 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 veggie oil processing plants are not just more affordable than pipelines, they can be constructed faster.
And jatropha curcas's biofuel potential? Another story for another time.
