The current revelations of a International Energy Administration whistleblower that the IEA may have misshaped key oil projections under intense U.S. pressure is, if real (and whistleblowers seldom step forward to advance their professions), a slow-burning atomic explosion on future international oil production. The Bush administration's actions in pressing the IEA to underplay the rate of decline from existing oil fields while overplaying the possibilities of discovering new reserves have the potential to toss governments' long-term planning into chaos.
Whatever the reality, rising long term international needs seem specific to outstrip production in the next decade, especially provided the high and increasing expenses of developing 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 first barrels of oil are produced.
In such a scenario, additives and alternatives such as biofuels will play an ever-increasing function by extending beleaguered production quotas. As market forces and rising rates drive this innovation to the forefront, one of the richest possible production areas 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 significant gamer in the production of biofuels if adequate foreign financial investment can be procured. Unlike Brazil, where biofuel is made mainly 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 shores of the Caspian, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan have seen their economies boom since of record-high energy costs, while Turkmenistan is waiting in the wings as a rising manufacturer of gas.
Farther to the east, in Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, geographical seclusion and reasonably scant hydrocarbon resources relative to their Western Caspian next-door neighbors have mostly inhibited their ability to money in on rising global energy needs up to now. Mountainous Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan stay mostly reliant for their electrical requirements on their Soviet-era hydroelectric infrastructure, however their increased requirement to produce winter season electrical power has actually resulted in autumnal and winter water discharges, in turn severely impacting the farming 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 significant manufacturer of wheat. Based upon my conversations with Central Asian government officials, offered the thirsty needs 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 sturdy financiers going to wager on the future, particularly as a plant indigenous to the region has 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 several European and American companies currently investigating how to produce it in industrial quantities for biofuel. In January Japan Airlines undertook a historical test flight using camelina-based bio-jet fuel, ending up being the very first Asian carrier to try out flying on fuel stemmed from sustainable feedstocks during 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 ability and potential industrial practicality.
As an alternative energy source, camelina has much to recommend it. It has a high oil content low in saturated fat. In contrast to Central Asia's thirsty "king cotton," camelina is drought-resistant and unsusceptible to spring freezing, requires 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 perk 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 load (1000 kg) of camelina will contain 350 kg of oil, of which pressing can extract 250 kg. Nothing in camelina production is lost as after processing, the plant's debris can be utilized for livestock silage. Camelina silage has a particularly appealing concentration of omega-3 fats that make it an especially fine animals feed prospect that is recently getting acknowledgment in the U.S. and Canada. Camelina is fast growing, produces its own natural herbicide (allelopathy) and contends well against weeds when an even crop is developed. According to Britain's Bangor University's Centre for Alternative Land Use, "Camelina might be a perfect low-input crop ideal 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 new crop on the scene: archaeological proof shows it has been cultivated in Europe for at least 3 centuries to produce both vegetable oil and animal fodder.
Field trials of production in Montana, presently the center of U.S. camelina research study, showed a wide variety of results of 330-1,700 lbs of seed per acre, with oil content differing between 29 and 40%. Optimal seeding rates have actually been determined to be in the 6-8 pound per acre variety, as the seeds' small size of 400,000 seeds per pound can develop problems in germination to attain an optimum plant density of around 9 plants per sq. ft.
Camelina's potential could allow Uzbekistan to start breaking out of its most dolorous tradition, the imposition of a cotton monoculture that has distorted the nation's attempts at agrarian reform since attaining self-reliance in 1991. Beginning in the late 19th century, the Russian government determined that Central Asia would become its cotton plantation to feed Moscow's growing fabric industry. The procedure was sped up under the Soviets. While Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan were also ordered 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 ended up being self-sufficient in cotton; 5 decades later on 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 absence of alternatives Tashkent stays wedded to cotton, producing about 3.6 million tons yearly, which generates more than $1 billion while constituting around 60 percent of the nation's hard currency earnings.
Beginning in the mid-1960s the Soviet government's instructions for Central Asian cotton production largely bankrupted the area'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 area's 2 primary rivers, the Amu Darya and Syr Darya, into inefficient watering 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 a location of 26,000 square miles, has diminished to one-quarter its original size in among 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 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 comparison to America or Europe - all that's missing is the foreign investment. U.S. investors have the money and access to the proficiency of America's land grant universities. What is specific is that biofuel's market share will grow with time; less certain is who will profit of establishing it as a practical concern in Central Asia.
If the recent past is anything to go by 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 show Asian interest, American investors have the academic know-how, if they want to follow the Silk Road into developing a brand-new market. Certainly anything that reduces water usage and pesticides, diversifies crop production and improves the great deal of their agrarian population will receive most careful consideration from Central Asia's federal governments, and farming and veggie oil processing plants are not only more affordable than pipelines, they can be developed faster.
And jatropha's biofuel potential? Another story for another time.
