The recent discoveries of a International Energy Administration whistleblower that the IEA may have distorted crucial oil projections under extreme U.S. pressure is, if real (and whistleblowers seldom come forward to advance their professions), a slow-burning thermonuclear explosion on future worldwide oil production. The Bush administration's actions in pushing the IEA to underplay the rate of decrease from existing oil fields while overplaying the possibilities of discovering new reserves have the potential to throw governments' long-term preparation into chaos.
Whatever the reality, rising long term international demands appear certain to outstrip production in the next years, particularly offered the high and rising costs of establishing brand-new super-fields such as Kazakhstan's overseas Kashagan and Brazil's southern Atlantic Jupiter and Carioca fields, which will require billions in financial investments before their first barrels of oil are produced.
In such a scenario, ingredients and alternatives such as biofuels will play an ever-increasing function by stretching beleaguered production quotas. As market forces and increasing rates drive this innovation to the leading edge, one of the wealthiest potential production locations has been completely overlooked by investors already - Central Asia. Formerly the USSR's cotton "plantation," the region is poised to end up being a major player in the production of biofuels if sufficient foreign investment can be obtained. Unlike Brazil, where biofuel is produced mostly from sugarcane, or the United States, where it is mostly distilled from corn, Central Asia's ace resource is an indigenous plant, Camelina sativa.
Of the former Soviet Caucasian and Central Asian republics, those clustered around the coasts 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 producer of gas.
Farther to the east, in Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, geographical seclusion and relatively little hydrocarbon resources relative to their Western Caspian next-door neighbors have actually mostly hindered their ability to money in on rising worldwide energy demands up to now. Mountainous Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan stay mainly dependent for their electrical needs on their Soviet-era hydroelectric facilities, however their increased requirement to produce winter electrical energy has led to autumnal and winter water discharges, in turn severely impacting 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 ended up being a major manufacturer of wheat. Based on my conversations with Central Asian federal government officials, offered the thirsty demands of cotton monoculture, foreign proposals to diversify agrarian production towards biofuel would have fantastic appeal in Astana, Ashgabat and Tashkent and to a lower degree Astana for those hardy financiers happy to bank on the future, especially as a plant indigenous to the area has actually currently shown itself in trials.
Known in the West as false flax, wild flax, linseed dodder, German sesame and Siberian oilseed, camelina is drawing in increased scientific interest for its oleaginous qualities, with a number of European and American business already investigating how to produce it in commercial quantities for biofuel. In January Japan Airlines carried out a historical test flight utilizing camelina-based bio-jet fuel, ending up being the first Asian provider to explore flying on fuel originated from sustainable feedstocks during a one-hour demonstration flight from Tokyo's Haneda Airport. The test was the conclusion of a 12-month examination of camelina's operational performance ability and potential commercial viability.
As an alternative energy source, camelina has much to suggest 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 specific interest in Kazakhstan, now Central Asia's significant wheat exporter. Another benefit of camelina is its tolerance of poorer, less fertile conditions. An acre planted with camelina can produce up to 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 contain 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 animals silage. Camelina silage has a particularly appealing concentration of omega-3 fatty acids that make it an especially great livestock feed prospect that is simply now getting acknowledgment in the U.S. and Canada. Camelina is quick growing, produces its own natural herbicide (allelopathy) and competes well versus 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 household, is indigenous to both Europe and Central Asia and barely a brand-new crop on the scene: historical proof shows it has actually been cultivated in Europe for at least three 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 variety of results of 330-1,700 lbs of seed per acre, with oil content varying in between 29 and 40%. Optimal seeding rates have actually been identified to be in the 6-8 lb per acre variety, as the seeds' little size of 400,000 seeds per pound can produce issues in germination to achieve an ideal plant density of around 9 plants per sq. ft.
Camelina's capacity might permit Uzbekistan to begin breaking out of its most dolorous legacy, the imposition of a cotton monoculture that has warped the nation's efforts at agrarian reform given that accomplishing self-reliance in 1991. Beginning in the late 19th century, the Russian federal government identified that Central Asia would become its cotton plantation to feed Moscow's growing fabric market. The procedure was accelerated under the Soviets. While Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan were also ordered by Moscow to sow 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; 5 decades later it had actually 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 might to diversify, in the lack of alternatives Tashkent stays wedded to cotton, producing about 3.6 million loads every year, which brings in more than $1 billion while making up around 60 percent of the country's hard cash income.
Beginning in the mid-1960s the Soviet federal government's directives for Central Asian cotton production mainly bankrupted the area's scarcest resource, water. Cotton uses about 3.5 acre feet of water per acre of plants, leading Soviet coordinators to divert ever-increasing volumes of water from the area's two main rivers, the Amu Darya and Syr Darya, into inefficient irrigation canals, resulting in the significant shrinkage of the rivers' last location, the Aral Sea. The Aral, when the world's fourth-largest inland sea with a location of 26,000 square miles, has diminished to one-quarter its original 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 generate $224 per acre; 28-bushel white wheat at $8.23 per bushel would amass $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 is the foreign financial investment. U.S. financiers have the money and access to the proficiency of America's land grant universities. What is certain is that biofuel's market share will grow gradually; less specific is who will enjoy the advantages of developing it as a viable issue in Central Asia.
If the current past is anything to go by 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 show Asian interest, American investors have the scholastic know-how, if they want to follow the Silk Road into establishing a new market. Certainly anything that minimizes water usage and pesticides, diversifies crop production and improves the great deal of their agrarian population will get most cautious consideration from Central Asia's federal governments, and farming and vegetable oil processing plants are not only more affordable than pipelines, they can be developed quicker.
And jatropha's biofuel capacity? Another story for another time.
