The current revelations of a International Energy Administration whistleblower that the IEA may 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 thermonuclear surge on future global oil production. The Bush administration's actions in pressuring the IEA to underplay the rate of decrease from existing oil fields while overplaying the opportunities of finding new reserves have the potential to toss governments' long-lasting preparation into turmoil.
Whatever the reality, rising long term global needs appear specific to overtake production in the next years, specifically given the high and increasing expenses of establishing new super-fields such as Kazakhstan's offshore Kashagan and Brazil's southern Atlantic Jupiter and Carioca fields, which will require billions in investments before their very first barrels of oil are produced.
In such a situation, ingredients and alternatives such as biofuels will play an ever-increasing role by extending beleaguered production quotas. As market forces and increasing rates drive this technology to the leading edge, one of the wealthiest prospective production locations has been completely ignored by financiers 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 sufficient foreign financial investment can be acquired. Unlike Brazil, where biofuel is produced mainly 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 shores of the Caspian, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan have actually seen their economies boom because of record-high energy costs, while Turkmenistan is waiting in the wings as an increasing manufacturer of natural gas.
Farther to the east, in Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, geographical seclusion and reasonably little hydrocarbon resources relative to their Western Caspian neighbors have actually mostly hindered their ability to capitalize rising global energy demands already. Mountainous Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan stay largely dependent for their electrical requirements on their Soviet-era hydroelectric facilities, but their heightened need to generate winter season electrical power has actually led to autumnal and winter water discharges, in turn significantly affecting the agriculture of their western downstream next-door neighbors Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan.
What these three downstream nations do have nevertheless is a Soviet-era tradition 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 ended up being a major producer of wheat. Based on my conversations with Central Asian government officials, provided the thirsty needs of cotton monoculture, foreign propositions to diversify agrarian production towards biofuel would have fantastic appeal in Astana, Ashgabat and Tashkent and to a lower level Astana for those hardy financiers going to bet on the future, particularly as a plant indigenous to the area has currently shown 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 currently examining how to produce it in industrial quantities for biofuel. In January Japan Airlines undertook a historical test flight utilizing camelina-based bio-jet fuel, ending up being the first Asian carrier 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 possible commercial viability.
As an alternative energy source, camelina has much to advise 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 unsusceptible 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 bonus 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 draw out 250 kg. Nothing in camelina production is squandered as after processing, the plant's particles can be used for animals silage. Camelina silage has an especially attractive concentration of omega-3 fatty acids that make it an especially great animals feed prospect 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 might 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 hardly a brand-new crop on the scene: archaeological proof shows it has 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 study, showed a large range of outcomes of 330-1,700 pounds of seed per acre, with oil content differing in between 29 and 40%. Optimal seeding rates have actually been identified to be in the 6-8 lb per acre range, as the seeds' small size of 400,000 seeds per lb can create problems in germination to accomplish an optimal plant density of around 9 plants per sq. ft.
Camelina's capacity might allow Uzbekistan to begin breaking out of its most dolorous legacy, the imposition of a cotton monoculture that has distorted the nation's attempts at agrarian reform because achieving independence 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 fabric industry. The process was sped up under the Soviets. While Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan were also bought 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 become self-dependent in cotton; five years later it had ended up being a major 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 every year, which brings in more than $1 billion while making up around 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 largely 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 region's 2 main rivers, the Amu Darya and Syr Darya, into ineffective watering canals, resulting in the significant shrinkage of the rivers' final location, 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 one of the 20th century's worst ecological catastrophes.
And now, the dollars and cents. Dr. Bill Schillinger at Washington State University recently described camelina's service 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 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. financiers have the cash and access to the know-how of America's land grant universities. What is certain is that biofuel's market share will grow with time; less particular is who will reap the benefits of developing it as a practical issue in Central Asia.
If the recent past is anything to pass it is unlikely 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 investors have the academic expertise, if they want to follow the Silk Road into establishing a brand-new market. Certainly anything that lessens water usage and pesticides, diversifies crop production and enhances the lot of their agrarian population will get most cautious factor to consider from Central Asia's governments, and farming and veggie oil processing plants are not only much more affordable than pipelines, they can be constructed quicker.
And jatropha curcas's biofuel potential? Another story for another time.
