The recent revelations of a International Energy Administration whistleblower that the IEA may have distorted crucial oil projections under intense U.S. pressure is, if true (and whistleblowers rarely step forward to advance their careers), a slow-burning atomic surge on future international 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 throw federal governments' long-term preparation into turmoil.
Whatever the truth, increasing long term worldwide needs appear certain to outstrip production in the next decade, particularly offered the high and increasing costs of establishing 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 situation, ingredients and replacements such as biofuels will play an ever-increasing role by stretching beleaguered production quotas. As market forces and increasing prices drive this technology to the leading edge, one of the richest possible production locations has actually been totally overlooked by financiers already - Central Asia. Formerly the USSR's cotton "plantation," the region 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 mainly distilled from corn, Central Asia's ace resource is an indigenous plant, Camelina sativa.
Of the former 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 manufacturer of natural 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 mainly prevented their ability to cash in on increasing international energy demands up to now. Mountainous Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan stay mainly reliant for their electrical needs on their Soviet-era hydroelectric infrastructure, but their heightened requirement to generate winter season electricity has actually caused autumnal and winter water discharges, in turn severely impacting the agriculture of their western downstream next-door neighbors Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan.
What these 3 downstream nations do have however is a Soviet-era legacy of agricultural production, which in Uzbekistan's and Turkmenistan case was mostly directed towards cotton production, while Kazakhstan, starting in the 1950s with Khrushchev's "Virgin Lands" programs, has actually become a major producer of wheat. Based upon my conversations with Central Asian government authorities, offered the thirsty needs of cotton monoculture, foreign proposals to diversify agrarian production towards biofuel would have excellent appeal in Astana, Ashgabat and Tashkent and to a lesser extent Astana for those sturdy financiers going to bet on the future, especially as a plant native 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 clinical interest for its oleaginous qualities, with a number of European and American companies currently examining how to produce it in business quantities for biofuel. In January Japan Airlines undertook a historical test flight utilizing camelina-based bio-jet fuel, becoming the first Asian carrier to experiment with flying on fuel stemmed from sustainable feedstocks throughout 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 capability and possible 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 immune 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 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 pushing can draw out 250 kg. Nothing in camelina production is squandered as after processing, the plant's particles can be used for animals silage. Camelina silage has an especially appealing concentration of omega-3 fats that make it a particularly fine animals feed candidate that is recently gaining acknowledgment in the U.S. and Canada. Camelina is quick growing, produces its own natural herbicide (allelopathy) and completes well against 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 suitable 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 barely a new crop on the scene: archaeological evidence indicates it has been cultivated in Europe for at least 3 centuries to produce both veggie oil and animal fodder.
Field trials of production in Montana, currently the center of U.S. camelina research study, showed a wide variety of outcomes of 330-1,700 lbs of seed per acre, with oil content varying between 29 and 40%. Optimal seeding rates have actually been figured out to be in the 6-8 pound per acre variety, as the seeds' little size of 400,000 seeds per pound can create problems in germination to achieve an optimum plant density of around 9 plants per sq. ft.
Camelina's capacity might enable 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 since accomplishing 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 fabric market. The process was accelerated 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 become self-dependent in cotton; 5 years later it had become 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 might to diversify, in the lack of alternatives Tashkent remains wedded to cotton, producing about 3.6 million lots each year, which generates more than $1 billion while making up around 60 percent of the country's tough currency earnings.
Beginning in the mid-1960s the Soviet government's regulations for Central Asian cotton production mainly bankrupted the area's scarcest resource, water. Cotton uses 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 primary rivers, the Amu Darya and Syr Darya, into inefficient watering canals, resulting in the remarkable shrinkage of the rivers' last destination, the Aral Sea. The Aral, as soon as the world's fourth-largest inland sea with a location of 26,000 square miles, has shrunk to one-quarter its initial size in one of the 20th century's worst eco-friendly catastrophes.
And now, the dollars and cents. Dr. Bill Schillinger at Washington State University recently described camelina's service 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 watering facilities and a modest wage scale in contrast to America or Europe - all that's missing is the foreign financial investment. U.S. financiers have the money and access to the competence of America's land grant universities. What is specific is that biofuel's market share will grow over time; less specific is who will reap the advantages of developing it as a practical issue in Central Asia.
If the recent past is anything to pass 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 indicate Asian interest, American financiers have the academic competence, if they are ready to follow the Silk Road into developing a brand-new market. Certainly anything that decreases water use and pesticides, diversifies crop production and improves the lot of their agrarian population will get most careful consideration from Central Asia's governments, and farming and vegetable oil processing plants are not just more affordable than pipelines, they can be constructed quicker.
And jatropha curcas's biofuel capacity? Another story for another time.
