The current discoveries of a International Energy Administration whistleblower that the IEA may have distorted crucial oil projections under intense U.S. pressure is, if real (and whistleblowers rarely step forward to advance their professions), a slow-burning atomic 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 finding new reserves have the prospective to throw governments' long-lasting planning into chaos.
Whatever the truth, increasing long term worldwide demands seem certain to overtake production in the next decade, especially offered 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 investments before their very first barrels of oil are produced.
In such a situation, ingredients and substitutes such as biofuels will play an ever-increasing function by extending beleaguered production quotas. As market forces and increasing prices drive this innovation to the forefront, one of the wealthiest prospective production areas has been totally ignored by investors up to now - Central Asia. Formerly the USSR's cotton "plantation," the region is poised to become a major player in the production of biofuels if sufficient foreign financial investment can be procured. Unlike Brazil, where biofuel is produced largely 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 actually seen their economies boom since of record-high energy costs, 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 little hydrocarbon resources relative to their Western Caspian neighbors have actually mostly inhibited their ability to capitalize rising global energy demands already. Mountainous Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan stay mainly dependent for their electrical requirements on their Soviet-era hydroelectric infrastructure, but their heightened requirement to produce winter electrical energy has caused autumnal and winter season water discharges, in turn significantly affecting the farming of their western downstream next-door neighbors Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan.
What these three downstream countries do have however is a Soviet-era tradition of agricultural production, which in Uzbekistan's and Turkmenistan case was mainly directed towards cotton production, while Kazakhstan, beginning in the 1950s with Khrushchev's "Virgin Lands" programs, has become a major manufacturer of wheat. Based on my discussions with Central Asian government officials, provided 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 lower extent Astana for those hardy investors ready to bet on the future, specifically as a plant native 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 several European and American companies currently examining how to produce it in business amounts for biofuel. In January Japan Airlines undertook a historic test flight using camelina-based bio-jet fuel, becoming the very first Asian carrier to experiment with 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 functional performance ability and potential industrial practicality.
As an alternative energy source, camelina has much to advise 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 utilized as a rotation crop with wheat, which would make it of particular interest in Kazakhstan, now Central Asia's significant wheat exporter. Another reward 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 lost as after processing, the plant's particles can be utilized for animals silage. Camelina silage has a particularly appealing concentration of omega-3 fatty acids that make it an especially fine animals feed candidate that is recently gaining acknowledgment in the U.S. and Canada. Camelina is fast growing, produces its own natural herbicide (allelopathy) and contends 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 native to both Europe and Central Asia and hardly a brand-new crop on the scene: historical proof indicates it has been cultivated in Europe for a minimum of three centuries to produce both veggie oil and animal fodder.
Field trials of production in Montana, currently the center of U.S. camelina research study, revealed a wide range of results of 330-1,700 pounds of seed per acre, with oil material differing in between 29 and 40%. Optimal seeding rates have actually been determined to be in the 6-8 lb per acre range, as the seeds' small size of 400,000 seeds per pound can develop problems in germination to achieve an optimum plant density of around 9 plants per sq. ft.
Camelina's capacity could permit 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 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 market. The process was sped up under the Soviets. While Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan were likewise 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 actually ended up being self-dependent in cotton; five decades later it had 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 may to diversify, in the absence of alternatives Tashkent remains wedded to cotton, producing about 3.6 million lots every year, which generates more than $1 billion while constituting around 60 percent of the country's hard currency income.
Beginning in the mid-1960s the Soviet government's directives 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 organizers to divert ever-increasing volumes of water from the region's 2 main rivers, the Amu Darya and Syr Darya, into inefficient watering canals, leading to the remarkable shrinkage of the rivers' final destination, the Aral Sea. The Aral, when the world's fourth-largest inland sea with a location of 26,000 square miles, has shrunk to one-quarter its original size in one of the 20th century's worst environmental catastrophes.
And now, the dollars and cents. Dr. Bill Schillinger at Washington State University just recently explained camelina's organization 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 watering infrastructure and a modest wage scale in comparison to America or Europe - all that's missing out on is the foreign investment. U.S. investors have the money and access to the knowledge of America's land grant universities. What is certain is that biofuel's market share will grow gradually; less certain is who will enjoy the benefits of developing it as a practical issue in Central Asia.
If the current past is anything to go by it is not likely to be American and European financiers, focused as they are on Caspian oil and gas.
But while the Japanese flight experiments suggest Asian interest, American financiers have the academic competence, if they are ready to follow the Silk Road into establishing a new market. Certainly anything that minimizes water usage and pesticides, diversifies crop production and enhances the great deal of their agrarian population will receive most cautious factor to consider from Central Asia's governments, and farming and vegetable oil processing plants are not just much less expensive than pipelines, they can be developed faster.
And jatropha curcas's biofuel potential? Another story for another time.
