The current revelations 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 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 discovering new reserves have the possible to throw federal governments' long-term preparation into turmoil.
Whatever the reality, increasing long term worldwide needs seem certain to overtake production in the next years, especially given the high and rising expenses of establishing new super-fields such as Kazakhstan's overseas Kashagan and Brazil's southern Atlantic Jupiter and Carioca fields, which will need billions in financial investments before their first barrels of oil are produced.
In such a circumstance, additives and alternatives such as biofuels will play an ever-increasing function by extending beleaguered production quotas. As market forces and increasing prices drive this technology to the forefront, among the richest possible production locations has been totally ignored by financiers already - Central Asia. Formerly the USSR's cotton "plantation," the region is poised to become a significant gamer in the production of biofuels if adequate foreign investment can be procured. Unlike Brazil, where biofuel is manufactured largely from sugarcane, or the United States, where it is primarily distilled from corn, Central Asia's ace resource is a native plant, Camelina sativa.
Of the former Soviet Caucasian and Central Asian republics, those clustered around the shores 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 a rising manufacturer of gas.
Farther to the east, in Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, geographical seclusion and fairly scant hydrocarbon resources relative to their Western Caspian neighbors have mostly hindered their capability to capitalize increasing international energy needs up to now. Mountainous Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan remain largely reliant for their electrical requirements on their Soviet-era hydroelectric facilities, however their heightened need to generate winter electrical power has resulted in autumnal and winter water discharges, in turn significantly affecting the agriculture of their western downstream neighbors Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan.
What these three downstream countries 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, starting in the 1950s with Khrushchev's "Virgin Lands" programs, has become a major producer of wheat. Based on my discussions with Central Asian federal government officials, offered the thirsty demands of cotton monoculture, foreign proposals to diversify agrarian production towards biofuel would have terrific appeal in Astana, Ashgabat and Tashkent and to a lower level Astana for those hardy investors ready to wager on the future, especially as a plant native to the region has actually already shown itself in trials.
Known in the West as incorrect flax, wild flax, linseed dodder, German sesame and Siberian oilseed, camelina is drawing in increased scientific interest for its oleaginous qualities, with numerous European and American business currently investigating how to produce it in industrial quantities for biofuel. In January Japan Airlines carried out a historic test flight using camelina-based bio-jet fuel, becoming the first Asian provider to explore flying on fuel originated from sustainable feedstocks throughout a one-hour demonstration flight from Tokyo's Haneda Airport. The test was the culmination of a 12-month examination of camelina's operational efficiency capability and prospective industrial 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 immune to spring freezing, requires 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 perk 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 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 a particularly appealing concentration of omega-3 fatty acids that make it an especially great livestock feed prospect that is recently acquiring recognition in the U.S. and Canada. Camelina is quick growing, produces its own natural herbicide (allelopathy) and contends well against weeds when an even crop is developed. According to Britain's Bangor University's Centre for Alternative Land Use, "Camelina might be an ideal low-input crop appropriate 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 shows it has actually been cultivated in Europe for at least 3 millennia to produce both grease and animal fodder.
Field trials of production in Montana, presently the center of U.S. camelina research, revealed a large range of results of 330-1,700 pounds of seed per acre, with oil content varying 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 produce issues in germination to attain an optimum plant density of around 9 plants per sq. ft.
Camelina's capacity might allow Uzbekistan to begin breaking out of its most dolorous tradition, the imposition of a cotton monoculture that has deformed the nation's attempts at agrarian reform given that achieving self-reliance in 1991. Beginning in the late 19th century, the Russian government determined that Central Asia would become its cotton plantation to feed Moscow's growing fabric industry. The process was sped up 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 actually ended up being self-dependent in cotton; five decades later on it had actually become a major 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 might to diversify, in the absence of options Tashkent remains wedded to cotton, producing about 3.6 million heaps every year, which brings in more than $1 billion while making up roughly 60 percent of the nation's hard cash earnings.
Beginning in the mid-1960s the Soviet federal government's instructions 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 region's 2 primary rivers, the Amu Darya and Syr Darya, into inefficient watering canals, resulting in the significant shrinking of the rivers' last destination, 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 initial size in among the 20th century's worst eco-friendly disasters.
And now, the dollars and cents. Dr. Bill Schillinger at Washington State University recently described camelina's service 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 watering facilities and a modest wage scale in comparison to America or Europe - all that's missing out on is the foreign investment. U.S. investors have the money and access to the expertise of America's land grant universities. What is certain is that biofuel's market share will grow gradually; less particular is who will profit of establishing it as a practical concern in Central Asia.
If the current past is anything to go by it is unlikely 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 financiers have the academic expertise, if they are willing to follow the Silk Road into establishing a brand-new market. Certainly anything that reduces water use and pesticides, diversifies crop production and improves the great deal of their agrarian population will receive most careful consideration from Central Asia's federal governments, and farming and vegetable oil processing plants are not only more affordable than pipelines, they can be built quicker.
And jatropha curcas's biofuel capacity? Another story for another time.
