The current discoveries of a International Energy Administration whistleblower that the IEA may have misshaped key oil projections under intense U.S. pressure is, if true (and whistleblowers rarely come forward to advance their professions), a slow-burning thermonuclear surge on future worldwide oil production. The Bush administration's actions in pressuring the IEA to underplay the rate of decline from existing oil fields while overplaying the possibilities of discovering brand-new reserves have the potential to toss governments' long-lasting planning into mayhem.
Whatever the truth, rising long term worldwide demands seem specific to outstrip production in the next years, specifically offered the high and increasing costs of developing brand-new super-fields such as Kazakhstan's offshore Kashagan and Brazil's southern Atlantic Jupiter and Carioca fields, which will need billions in financial investments before their very first barrels of oil are produced.
In such a situation, additives and replacements such as biofuels will play an ever-increasing function by extending beleaguered production quotas. As market forces and rising rates drive this technology to the leading edge, one of the wealthiest possible production locations has actually been completely overlooked by investors up to now - Central Asia. Formerly the USSR's cotton "plantation," the area is poised to become a major gamer in the production of biofuels if sufficient foreign investment can be procured. Unlike Brazil, where biofuel is made 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 because of record-high energy costs, while Turkmenistan is waiting in the wings as a rising 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 actually largely prevented their capability to capitalize rising international energy needs up to now. Mountainous Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan stay mainly reliant for their electrical requirements on their Soviet-era hydroelectric facilities, however their increased need to generate winter season electrical power has actually resulted in autumnal and winter season water discharges, in turn severely impacting the agriculture of their western downstream neighbors Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan.
What these 3 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 significant manufacturer of wheat. Based upon my conversations with Central Asian government officials, provided the thirsty needs of cotton monoculture, foreign proposals to diversify agrarian production towards biofuel would have great appeal in Astana, Ashgabat and Tashkent and to a lower level Astana for those durable investors willing to bank on the future, particularly as a plant indigenous to the area has actually currently shown itself in trials.
Known in the West as incorrect flax, wild flax, linseed dodder, German sesame and Siberian oilseed, camelina is attracting increased clinical interest for its oleaginous qualities, with several European and American companies already investigating how to produce it in commercial amounts for biofuel. In January Japan Airlines carried out a historical test flight using 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 culmination of a 12-month evaluation of camelina's operational efficiency ability and prospective business practicality.
As an alternative energy source, camelina has much to advise it. It has a high oil material 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 utilized as a rotation crop with wheat, which would make it of particular interest in Kazakhstan, now Central Asia's major wheat exporter. Another reward 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 lot (1000 kg) of camelina will consist of 350 kg of oil, of which pressing 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 an especially appealing concentration of omega-3 fatty acids that make it an especially great animals feed prospect that is just now getting recognition in the U.S. and Canada. Camelina is quick 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 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 evidence indicates it has been cultivated in Europe for a minimum of three centuries to produce both vegetable oil and animal fodder.
Field trials of production in Montana, presently the center of U.S. camelina research, showed a large range of outcomes of 330-1,700 pounds of seed per acre, with oil material varying in between 29 and 40%. Optimal seeding rates have been figured out to be in the 6-8 pound per acre range, as the seeds' small size of 400,000 seeds per pound can produce issues in germination to attain an optimum plant density of around 9 plants per sq. ft.
Camelina's potential could 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 considering that achieving self-reliance in 1991. Beginning in the late 19th century, the Russian federal government figured out 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 sow cotton, Uzbekistan in particular was singled out to produce "white gold."
By the end of the 1930s the Soviet Union had actually become self-sufficient in cotton; 5 years later on 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 might to diversify, in the lack of options Tashkent stays wedded to cotton, producing about 3.6 million tons each year, which generates more than $1 billion while making up roughly 60 percent of the nation's difficult currency earnings.
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 organizers to divert ever-increasing volumes of water from the region's two main rivers, the Amu Darya and Syr Darya, into ineffective watering canals, resulting in the remarkable shrinking of the rivers' last location, the Aral Sea. The Aral, once the world's fourth-largest inland sea with an area of 26,000 square miles, has actually shrunk to one-quarter its initial 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 explained camelina's company model 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 garner $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 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 profit of developing 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 financiers, fixated as they are on Caspian oil and gas.
But while the Japanese flight experiments show Asian interest, American financiers have the academic proficiency, if they are ready to follow the Silk Road into establishing a brand-new market. Certainly anything that decreases water usage and pesticides, diversifies crop production and enhances the great deal of their agrarian population will get most mindful factor to consider from Central Asia's federal governments, and farming and grease processing plants are not only much more affordable than pipelines, they can be built quicker.
And jatropha curcas's biofuel potential? Another story for another time.
