The recent revelations of a International Energy Administration whistleblower that the IEA may have misshaped essential oil projections under intense U.S. pressure is, if real (and whistleblowers seldom come forward to advance their careers), a slow-burning atomic explosion on future international oil production. The Bush administration's actions in pushing the IEA to underplay the rate of decline from existing oil fields while overplaying the chances of discovering new reserves have the possible to throw governments' long-term planning into mayhem.
Whatever the truth, rising long term global needs appear specific to overtake production in the next decade, especially provided the high and increasing expenses 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 financial investments before their first barrels of oil are produced.
In such a scenario, additives and substitutes such as biofuels will play an ever-increasing role by stretching beleaguered production quotas. As market forces and rising prices drive this innovation to the leading edge, among the richest potential production areas has been absolutely overlooked by financiers up to now - 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 mainly 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 since of record-high energy prices, while Turkmenistan is waiting in the wings as an increasing producer of gas.
Farther to the east, in Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, geographical isolation and fairly scant hydrocarbon resources relative to their Western Caspian next-door neighbors have mainly prevented their ability to money in on increasing global energy demands up to now. Mountainous Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan stay mostly dependent for their electrical needs on their Soviet-era hydroelectric infrastructure, however their increased need to generate winter season electrical power has actually caused autumnal and winter water discharges, in turn seriously 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 farming production, which in Uzbekistan's and Turkmenistan case was largely directed towards cotton production, while Kazakhstan, starting in the 1950s with Khrushchev's "Virgin Lands" programs, has ended up being a major producer of wheat. Based upon my discussions with Central Asian federal government officials, provided 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 lesser extent Astana for those durable investors going to wager on the future, specifically as a plant indigenous to the area has already shown itself in trials.
Known in the West as false flax, wild flax, linseed dodder, German sesame and Siberian oilseed, camelina is bring in increased scientific interest for its oleaginous qualities, with several European and American business already examining how to produce it in business 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 experiment with flying on fuel stemmed from sustainable feedstocks throughout a one-hour presentation flight from Tokyo's Haneda Airport. The test was the culmination of a 12-month examination of camelina's functional efficiency ability 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 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 significant wheat exporter. Another bonus offer 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 ton (1000 kg) of camelina will include 350 kg of oil, of which pushing can draw out 250 kg. Nothing in camelina production is lost as after processing, the plant's debris can be utilized for livestock silage. Camelina silage has an especially attractive concentration of omega-3 fats that make it an especially great livestock feed prospect that is just now getting acknowledgment in the U.S. and Canada. Camelina is fast growing, produces its own natural herbicide (allelopathy) and competes well versus weeds when an even crop is developed. 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 new crop on the scene: historical proof indicates it has actually been cultivated in Europe for a minimum of 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 broad range of outcomes of 330-1,700 lbs of seed per acre, with oil content varying between 29 and 40%. Optimal seeding rates have actually been figured out to be in the 6-8 lb per acre range, as the seeds' little size of 400,000 seeds per pound can create problems in germination to achieve an ideal plant density of around 9 plants per sq. ft.
Camelina's capacity might enable Uzbekistan to start breaking out of its most dolorous legacy, the imposition of a cotton monoculture that has deformed the country's efforts at agrarian reform considering that achieving independence 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 textile industry. The process was accelerated under the Soviets. While Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan were likewise bought 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 become self-dependent in cotton; five years later it had actually become 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 might to diversify, in the lack of options Tashkent stays wedded to cotton, producing about 3.6 million lots annually, which generates more than $1 billion while making up roughly 60 percent of the nation's hard cash 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 uses 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 main rivers, the Amu Darya and Syr Darya, into ineffective irrigation canals, resulting in the significant shrinking of the rivers' last location, the Aral Sea. The Aral, as soon as 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 eco-friendly catastrophes.
And now, the dollars and cents. Dr. Bill Schillinger at Washington State University recently described camelina's business 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 gather $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 knowledge of America's land grant universities. What is specific is that biofuel's market share will grow gradually; less particular is who will reap the advantages of developing it as a practical issue in Central Asia.
If the current past is anything to pass it is unlikely to be American and European investors, fixated as they are on Caspian oil and gas.
But while the Japanese flight experiments show Asian interest, American financiers have the academic expertise, if they want to follow the Silk Road into developing a new market. Certainly anything that reduces water usage and pesticides, diversifies crop production and enhances the lot of their agrarian population will receive most cautious consideration from Central Asia's federal governments, and farming and vegetable oil processing plants are not only much more affordable than pipelines, they can be built more quickly.
And jatropha's biofuel capacity? Another story for another time.
