The current discoveries of a International Energy Administration whistleblower that the IEA might have distorted essential oil forecasts under intense U.S. pressure is, if real (and whistleblowers hardly ever come forward to advance their professions), a slow-burning thermonuclear explosion on future worldwide oil production. The Bush administration's actions in pressuring the IEA to underplay the rate of decline from existing oil fields while overplaying the opportunities of discovering brand-new reserves have the potential to throw federal governments' long-lasting planning into mayhem.
Whatever the truth, increasing long term worldwide demands seem particular to outstrip production in the next decade, especially provided the high and rising costs 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 investments before their first barrels of oil are produced.
In such a scenario, additives and alternatives such as biofuels will play an ever-increasing role by stretching beleaguered production quotas. As market forces and increasing prices drive this innovation to the forefront, among the richest potential production areas has actually been absolutely ignored by investors up to now - 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 acquired. Unlike Brazil, where biofuel is manufactured largely from sugarcane, or the United States, where it is mostly 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 coasts of the Caspian, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan have actually seen their economies boom because of record-high energy prices, while Turkmenistan is waiting in the wings as a rising manufacturer of natural gas.
Farther to the east, in Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, geographical isolation and relatively little hydrocarbon resources relative to their Western Caspian next-door neighbors have actually mainly prevented their capability to cash in on rising international energy needs already. Mountainous Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan stay largely reliant for their electrical requirements on their Soviet-era hydroelectric facilities, however their heightened requirement to produce winter season 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 three downstream nations do have however is a Soviet-era legacy of farming production, which in Uzbekistan's and Turkmenistan case was mostly directed towards cotton production, while Kazakhstan, beginning in the 1950s with Khrushchev's "Virgin Lands" programs, has become a significant producer of wheat. Based on my discussions with Central Asian federal government authorities, given 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 lower level Astana for those sturdy financiers going to bank on the future, particularly as a plant native to the region has actually already proven 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 numerous European and American business currently investigating how to produce it in business amounts for biofuel. In January Japan Airlines undertook 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 throughout a one-hour presentation flight from Tokyo's Haneda Airport. The test was the culmination of a 12-month assessment of camelina's functional efficiency capability and possible business viability.
As an alternative energy source, camelina has much to recommend it. It has a high oil content low in hydrogenated fat. In contrast to Central Asia's thirsty "king cotton," camelina is drought-resistant and immune 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 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 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 squandered as after processing, the plant's particles can be utilized for livestock silage. Camelina silage has a particularly attractive concentration of omega-3 fatty acids that make it a particularly great livestock feed candidate that is just now gaining acknowledgment in the U.S. and Canada. Camelina is quick growing, produces its own natural herbicide (allelopathy) and competes 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 appropriate 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 brand-new crop on the scene: archaeological evidence shows it has actually 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 wide variety of outcomes of 330-1,700 lbs of seed per acre, with oil content varying in between 29 and 40%. Optimal seeding rates have been figured out to be in the 6-8 pound per acre range, as the seeds' small size of 400,000 seeds per pound can develop issues in germination to accomplish an optimal plant density of around 9 plants per sq. ft.
Camelina's potential could permit Uzbekistan to start 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 achieving 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 textile industry. The procedure was sped up under the Soviets. While Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan were also purchased by Moscow to sow 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-dependent in cotton; 5 decades later on it had actually ended up being a significant 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 yearly, which generates more than $1 billion while making up roughly 60 percent of the nation's difficult currency earnings.
Beginning in the mid-1960s the Soviet government's directives 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 coordinators to divert ever-increasing volumes of water from the region's 2 primary rivers, the Amu Darya and Syr Darya, into ineffective watering canals, resulting in the significant shrinkage of the rivers' last destination, the Aral Sea. The Aral, once 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 ecological disasters.
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 generate $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 know-how of America's land grant universities. What is specific is that biofuel's market share will grow over time; less certain is who will profit of establishing it as a viable concern in Central Asia.
If the current past is anything to pass 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 financiers have the academic competence, if they want to follow the Silk Road into establishing a new market. Certainly anything that lessens water use and pesticides, diversifies crop production and enhances the great deal of their agrarian population will receive most mindful consideration from Central Asia's governments, and farming and veggie oil processing plants are not just much more affordable than pipelines, they can be developed faster.
And jatropha's biofuel potential? Another story for another time.
