The current discoveries of a International Energy Administration whistleblower that the IEA may have distorted key oil forecasts under intense U.S. pressure is, if true (and whistleblowers seldom step forward to advance their careers), a slow-burning atomic surge on future global oil production. The Bush administration's actions in pressing the IEA to underplay the rate of decrease from existing oil fields while overplaying the possibilities of finding brand-new reserves have the potential to toss federal governments' long-term planning into turmoil.
Whatever the reality, increasing long term international needs seem particular to overtake production in the next years, particularly given the high and increasing 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 financial investments before their first barrels of oil are produced.
In such a circumstance, additives and replacements such as biofuels will play an ever-increasing function by extending beleaguered production quotas. As market forces and rising costs drive this innovation to the forefront, among the wealthiest possible production locations has actually been completely overlooked by investors up to now - Central Asia. Formerly the USSR's cotton "plantation," the area is poised to end up being a major gamer in the production of biofuels if enough foreign financial investment can be procured. 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 a native plant, Camelina sativa.
Of the previous Soviet Caucasian and Central Asian republics, those clustered around the shores of the Caspian, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan have seen their economies boom since of record-high energy rates, while Turkmenistan is waiting in the wings as an increasing manufacturer of gas.
Farther to the east, in Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, geographical seclusion and fairly little hydrocarbon resources relative to their Western Caspian neighbors have mainly prevented their capability to money in on increasing global energy demands already. Mountainous Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan remain largely dependent for their electrical requirements on their Soviet-era hydroelectric facilities, but their heightened need to generate winter season electrical energy has actually led to autumnal and winter water discharges, in turn seriously 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 farming production, which in Uzbekistan's and Turkmenistan case was mostly directed towards cotton production, while Kazakhstan, starting in the 1950s with Khrushchev's "Virgin Lands" programs, has ended up being a significant manufacturer of wheat. Based on my conversations with Central Asian federal government authorities, provided the thirsty demands of cotton monoculture, foreign propositions to diversify agrarian production towards biofuel would have great appeal in Astana, Ashgabat and Tashkent and to a lesser level Astana for those durable financiers willing to wager on the future, particularly as a plant native to the area 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 bring in increased scientific interest for its oleaginous qualities, with numerous European and American companies currently 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, becoming the very first Asian carrier to try out flying on fuel obtained 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 functional efficiency capability and prospective industrial practicality.
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, requires less fertilizer and herbicides, and can be utilized 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 planted with camelina can produce approximately 100 gallons of oil and when planted in rotation with wheat, camelina can increase wheat production by 15 percent. A lot (1000 kg) of camelina will consist of 350 kg of oil, of which pushing can extract 250 kg. Nothing in camelina production is wasted as after processing, the plant's debris can be used for animals silage. Camelina silage has an especially appealing concentration of omega-3 fatty acids that make it an especially fine animals feed candidate that is recently getting recognition 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 established. According to Britain's Bangor University's Centre for Alternative Land Use, "Camelina could be an ideal 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 family, is native to both Europe and Central Asia and barely a brand-new crop on the scene: archaeological evidence suggests it has been cultivated in Europe for at least 3 millennia to produce both vegetable oil and animal fodder.
Field trials of production in Montana, presently the center of U.S. camelina research, revealed a vast array of outcomes of 330-1,700 lbs of seed per acre, with oil material differing in between 29 and 40%. Optimal seeding rates have been determined to be in the 6-8 lb per acre range, as the seeds' small size of 400,000 seeds per pound can produce issues in germination to attain an optimal plant density of around 9 plants per sq. ft.
Camelina's capacity might allow Uzbekistan to start breaking out of its most dolorous tradition, the imposition of a cotton monoculture that has deformed the nation's efforts at agrarian reform because achieving self-reliance in 1991. Beginning in the late 19th century, the Russian government identified that Central Asia would become its cotton plantation to feed Moscow's growing fabric market. The process was accelerated under the Soviets. While Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan were also purchased 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 ended up being self-sufficient in cotton; five 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 stays wedded to cotton, producing about 3.6 million lots each year, which brings in more than $1 billion while making up approximately 60 percent of the country's tough currency income.
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 utilizes about 3.5 acre feet of water per acre of plants, leading Soviet planners to divert ever-increasing volumes of water from the region's two primary rivers, the Amu Darya and Syr Darya, into inefficient watering canals, leading to the significant shrinking of the rivers' last location, the Aral Sea. The Aral, once the world's fourth-largest inland sea with an area of 26,000 square miles, has diminished to one-quarter its initial 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 business model 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 gather $230."
Central Asia has the land, the farms, the irrigation facilities and a modest wage scale in comparison to America or Europe - all that's missing is the foreign financial investment. U.S. financiers have the money and access to the knowledge of America's land grant universities. What is specific is that biofuel's market share will grow with time; less certain is who will gain the benefits of establishing it as a feasible issue in Central Asia.
If the recent past is anything to pass 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 suggest Asian interest, American investors have the scholastic competence, if they want to follow the Silk Road into developing a new market. Certainly anything that lessens 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 grease processing plants are not only more affordable than pipelines, they can be developed faster.
And jatropha curcas's biofuel potential? Another story for another time.
