The current discoveries of a International Energy Administration whistleblower that the IEA might have distorted crucial oil forecasts under intense U.S. pressure is, if true (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 discovering brand-new reserves have the potential to toss governments' long-lasting planning into mayhem.
Whatever the truth, rising long term international needs appear particular to overtake production in the next years, particularly offered the high and rising costs of establishing new super-fields such as Kazakhstan's overseas Kashagan and Brazil's southern Atlantic Jupiter and Carioca fields, which will require billions in investments before their very first barrels of oil are produced.
In such a situation, 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 forefront, one of the wealthiest prospective 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 player in the production of biofuels if sufficient foreign financial investment can be acquired. 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 coasts 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 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 next-door neighbors have actually mainly prevented their capability to capitalize increasing worldwide energy demands already. Mountainous Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan stay mostly dependent for their electrical needs on their Soviet-era hydroelectric facilities, but their increased need to generate winter electrical energy has caused autumnal and winter water discharges, in turn significantly impacting the agriculture of their western downstream next-door neighbors Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan.
What these 3 downstream countries do have however is a Soviet-era tradition of farming 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 significant producer of wheat. Based on my discussions with Central Asian federal government officials, offered 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 lesser degree Astana for those durable financiers willing to wager on the future, particularly as a plant native to the region 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 numerous European and American business already examining 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 very first Asian provider 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 culmination of a 12-month assessment of camelina's operational performance capability and possible commercial practicality.
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 immune to spring freezing, needs less fertilizer and herbicides, and can be used as a rotation crop with wheat, which would make it of particular interest in Kazakhstan, now Central Asia's significant wheat exporter. Another bonus of camelina is its tolerance of poorer, less fertile conditions. An acre sown 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 consist of 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 used for animals silage. Camelina silage has an especially attractive concentration of omega-3 fatty acids that make it an especially great livestock feed candidate that is just now getting recognition in the U.S. and Canada. Camelina is quick growing, produces its own natural herbicide (allelopathy) and completes well versus weeds when an even crop is established. 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 barely a brand-new crop on the scene: archaeological evidence shows it has been cultivated in Europe for a minimum of 3 centuries to produce both vegetable oil and animal fodder.
Field trials of production in Montana, currently the center of U.S. camelina research, revealed a broad variety of results of 330-1,700 lbs of seed per acre, with oil content differing in 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 produce issues in germination to attain an optimum plant density of around 9 plants per sq. ft.
Camelina's potential could enable Uzbekistan to start breaking out of its most dolorous legacy, the imposition of a cotton monoculture that has warped the country's efforts at agrarian reform considering that attaining self-reliance 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 sped up under the Soviets. While Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan were also ordered by Moscow to plant cotton, Uzbekistan in specific was singled out to produce "white gold."
By the end of the 1930s the Soviet Union had ended up being self-dependent in cotton; 5 decades later it had actually become a major 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 alternatives Tashkent stays wedded to cotton, producing about 3.6 million tons each year, which generates more than $1 billion while making up approximately 60 percent of the nation's difficult currency income.
Beginning in the mid-1960s the Soviet government's regulations 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 area's two main rivers, the Amu Darya and Syr Darya, into ineffective irrigation canals, resulting in the dramatic 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 among the 20th century's worst eco-friendly catastrophes.
And now, the dollars and cents. Dr. Bill Schillinger at Washington State University just recently described camelina's company design 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 garner $230."
Central Asia has the land, the farms, the irrigation infrastructure and a modest wage scale in comparison to America or Europe - all that's missing is the foreign financial investment. U.S. investors have the cash and access to the expertise of America's land grant universities. What is certain is that biofuel's market share will grow in time; less specific is who will profit of establishing it as a feasible concern in Central Asia.
If the recent past is anything to pass 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 financiers have the academic expertise, if they want to follow the Silk Road into developing a new market. Certainly anything that decreases water usage and pesticides, diversifies crop production and enhances the lot of their agrarian population will get most careful consideration from Central Asia's federal governments, and farming and grease processing plants are not only more affordable than pipelines, they can be constructed more rapidly.
And jatropha curcas's biofuel capacity? Another story for another time.
