The current discoveries of a International Energy Administration whistleblower that the IEA might have misshaped key oil forecasts under extreme U.S. pressure is, if true (and whistleblowers hardly ever step forward to advance their professions), a slow-burning atomic explosion on future international oil production. The Bush administration's actions in pressuring the IEA to underplay the rate of decline from existing oil fields while overplaying the chances of finding brand-new reserves have the possible to throw federal governments' long-lasting preparation into turmoil.
Whatever the reality, increasing long term worldwide demands seem particular to outstrip production in the next years, specifically offered the high and increasing costs of establishing brand-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 substitutes such as biofuels will play an ever-increasing function by stretching beleaguered production quotas. As market forces and rising prices drive this innovation to the leading edge, among the wealthiest potential production areas has been totally neglected by investors up to now - Central Asia. Formerly the USSR's cotton "plantation," the region is poised to become a significant player in the production of biofuels if sufficient foreign financial investment can be obtained. Unlike Brazil, where biofuel is produced mostly from sugarcane, or the United States, where it is primarily 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 actually 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 isolation and relatively scant hydrocarbon resources relative to their Western Caspian next-door neighbors have mostly hindered their capability to money in on rising global energy demands already. Mountainous Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan remain mainly dependent for their electrical needs on their Soviet-era hydroelectric facilities, but their increased requirement to generate winter season electricity has led to autumnal and winter season water discharges, in turn significantly impacting the agriculture of their western downstream 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 largely 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 federal government authorities, given the thirsty needs of cotton monoculture, foreign propositions to diversify agrarian production towards biofuel would have excellent appeal in Astana, Ashgabat and Tashkent and to a lower extent Astana for those hardy financiers going to bank on the future, especially as a plant native to the area has currently shown 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 several European and American companies already examining how to produce it in business quantities for biofuel. In January Japan Airlines undertook a historic test flight using camelina-based bio-jet fuel, ending up being the first Asian carrier to experiment with 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 performance ability and prospective commercial practicality.
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, 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 benefit of camelina is its tolerance of poorer, less fertile conditions. An acre sown 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 pressing 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 a particularly attractive concentration of omega-3 fats that make it an especially fine animals feed prospect 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 developed. 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 hardly a brand-new crop on the scene: historical evidence suggests it has actually been cultivated in Europe for a minimum of 3 centuries to produce both grease and animal fodder.
Field trials of production in Montana, presently the center of U.S. camelina research study, showed a wide range of results of 330-1,700 pounds of seed per acre, with oil material varying in between 29 and 40%. Optimal seeding rates have actually been identified to be in the 6-8 pound per acre range, as the seeds' little size of 400,000 seeds per lb can create issues in germination to accomplish an ideal plant density of around 9 plants per sq. ft.
Camelina's potential might enable Uzbekistan to start breaking out of its most dolorous legacy, the imposition of a cotton monoculture that has warped the nation's efforts at agrarian reform since attaining self-reliance in 1991. Beginning in the late 19th century, the Russian federal government figured out that Central Asia would become its cotton plantation to feed Moscow's growing textile industry. The procedure was accelerated under the Soviets. While Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan were likewise purchased 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 become self-sufficient in cotton; five decades later it had 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 may to diversify, in the absence of alternatives Tashkent remains wedded to cotton, producing about 3.6 million loads yearly, which generates more than $1 billion while making up approximately 60 percent of the nation's difficult currency earnings.
Beginning in the mid-1960s the Soviet federal government's directives for Central Asian cotton production mostly bankrupted the area'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 two main rivers, the Amu Darya and Syr Darya, into inefficient irrigation canals, leading to the remarkable shrinkage of the rivers' last destination, 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 original size in one of the 20th century's worst ecological catastrophes.
And now, the dollars and cents. Dr. Bill Schillinger at Washington State University just recently explained camelina's company 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 amass $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 is the foreign financial investment. U.S. investors 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 over time; less certain is who will gain the benefits of establishing it as a practical concern in Central Asia.
If the recent 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 suggest Asian interest, American investors have the academic know-how, if they are willing to follow the Silk Road into establishing a 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 factor to consider from Central Asia's federal governments, and farming and veggie oil processing plants are not just more affordable than pipelines, they can be built faster.
And jatropha curcas's biofuel capacity? Another story for another time.
