The recent revelations of a International Energy Administration whistleblower that the IEA may have distorted key oil forecasts under extreme U.S. pressure is, if true (and whistleblowers rarely step forward to advance their careers), a slow-burning thermonuclear explosion on future global oil production. The Bush administration's actions in pressuring the IEA to underplay the rate of decline from existing oil fields while overplaying the chances of discovering new reserves have the prospective to toss governments' long-lasting preparation into turmoil.
Whatever the reality, rising long term worldwide demands appear specific to overtake production in the next decade, particularly given the high and rising expenses of developing brand-new super-fields such as Kazakhstan's offshore Kashagan and Brazil's southern Atlantic Jupiter and Carioca fields, which will require billions in financial investments before their very first barrels of oil are produced.
In such a scenario, additives and substitutes 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, among the wealthiest possible production areas has been totally 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 enough foreign financial investment can be acquired. Unlike Brazil, where biofuel is made 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 shores of the Caspian, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan have actually seen their economies boom due to the fact that of record-high energy rates, while Turkmenistan is waiting in the wings as a rising manufacturer of natural 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 prevented their capability to capitalize increasing global energy demands already. Mountainous Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan remain mainly dependent for their electrical needs on their Soviet-era hydroelectric infrastructure, however their heightened requirement to create winter electrical power has actually led to autumnal and winter season water discharges, in turn badly affecting the agriculture of their western downstream next-door neighbors Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan.
What these 3 downstream nations do have nevertheless is a Soviet-era tradition of agricultural 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 actually ended up being a significant producer of wheat. Based upon my conversations with Central Asian federal government authorities, offered the thirsty needs 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 sturdy financiers happy to bank on the future, specifically as a plant native 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 drawing in increased scientific interest for its oleaginous qualities, with several European and American companies currently examining how to produce it in commercial quantities for biofuel. In January Japan Airlines carried out a historical test flight using camelina-based bio-jet fuel, becoming the very first Asian carrier to try out flying on fuel derived from sustainable feedstocks throughout a one-hour presentation flight from Tokyo's Haneda Airport. The test was the conclusion of a 12-month examination of camelina's operational efficiency ability and potential industrial 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, requires less fertilizer and herbicides, and can be utilized 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 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 include 350 kg of oil, of which pressing can draw out 250 kg. Nothing in camelina production is wasted as after processing, the plant's particles can be utilized for livestock silage. Camelina silage has a particularly appealing concentration of omega-3 fatty acids that make it an especially fine livestock feed candidate that is simply now acquiring 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 developed. According to Britain's Bangor University's Centre for Alternative Land Use, "Camelina could be an ideal 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 family, is indigenous to both Europe and Central Asia and hardly a new crop on the scene: historical evidence suggests it has 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, showed a wide range of results of 330-1,700 lbs of seed per acre, with oil content varying between 29 and 40%. Optimal seeding rates have actually been identified to be in the 6-8 pound per acre variety, as the seeds' small size of 400,000 seeds per lb can create issues in germination to attain an ideal plant density of around 9 plants per sq. ft.
Camelina's capacity might permit Uzbekistan to start breaking out of its most dolorous legacy, the imposition of a cotton monoculture that has distorted the country's efforts at agrarian reform because attaining self-reliance in 1991. Beginning in the late 19th century, the Russian federal government determined 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 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 ended up being self-sufficient in cotton; 5 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 may to diversify, in the lack of alternatives Tashkent remains wedded to cotton, producing about 3.6 million loads each year, which brings in more than $1 billion while making up around 60 percent of the country's difficult currency earnings.
Beginning in the mid-1960s the Soviet federal government's regulations 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 coordinators to divert ever-increasing volumes of water from the area's 2 main rivers, the Amu Darya and Syr Darya, into ineffective watering canals, leading to the remarkable 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 actually shrunk to one-quarter its original size in one of the 20th century's worst environmental disasters.
And now, the dollars and cents. Dr. Bill Schillinger at Washington State University recently described camelina's organization 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 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 investment. U.S. financiers have the cash and access to the knowledge of America's land grant universities. What is certain is that biofuel's market share will grow over time; less specific 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 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 scholastic expertise, if they are willing to follow the Silk Road into developing a new market. Certainly anything that reduces water use and pesticides, diversifies crop production and enhances the lot of their agrarian population will receive most mindful factor to consider from Central Asia's governments, and farming and grease processing plants are not only more affordable than pipelines, they can be built more quickly.
And jatropha's biofuel capacity? Another story for another time.
