GitLab

The current revelations of a International Energy Administration whistleblower that the IEA might have misshaped crucial oil projections under intense U.S. pressure is, if true (and whistleblowers rarely come forward to advance their careers), a slow-burning atomic explosion on future worldwide oil production. The Bush administration's actions in pushing the IEA to underplay the rate of decline from existing oil fields while overplaying the opportunities of discovering new reserves have the possible to throw governments' long-term planning into turmoil.

Whatever the truth, increasing long term worldwide needs seem certain to outstrip production in the next decade, specifically given the high and rising expenses of establishing new super-fields such as Kazakhstan's overseas 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, ingredients and alternatives such as biofuels will play an ever-increasing function by stretching beleaguered production quotas. As market forces and increasing prices drive this innovation to the leading edge, one of the richest prospective production areas has been absolutely neglected by investors up to now - Central Asia. Formerly the USSR's cotton "plantation," the area is poised to end up being a major player in the production of biofuels if sufficient foreign investment can be acquired. Unlike Brazil, where biofuel is produced largely from sugarcane, or the United States, where it is mostly 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 due to the fact that of record-high energy rates, 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 little hydrocarbon resources relative to their Western Caspian neighbors have actually largely hindered their ability to cash in on rising international energy needs up to now. Mountainous Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan stay largely dependent for their electrical needs on their Soviet-era hydroelectric facilities, however their heightened requirement to generate winter electricity has actually caused autumnal and winter water discharges, in turn badly affecting the farming of their western downstream next-door neighbors Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan.

What these 3 downstream countries do have nevertheless 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 become a major producer of wheat. Based on my conversations with Central Asian federal government authorities, provided the thirsty demands of cotton monoculture, foreign proposals to diversify agrarian production towards biofuel would have excellent appeal in Astana, Ashgabat and Tashkent and to a lesser degree Astana for those durable investors ready to bank on the future, specifically as a plant indigenous to the area has currently proven itself in trials.

Known in the West as false flax, wild flax, linseed dodder, German sesame and Siberian oilseed, camelina is drawing in increased clinical interest for its oleaginous qualities, with numerous European and American business already examining how to produce it in industrial amounts for biofuel. In January Japan Airlines undertook a historic test flight using camelina-based bio-jet fuel, ending up being the first Asian provider to explore 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 functional performance ability and possible industrial viability.

As an alternative energy source, camelina has much to suggest 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 specific interest in Kazakhstan, now Central Asia's major wheat exporter. Another perk of camelina is its tolerance of poorer, less fertile conditions. An acre planted with camelina can produce up to 100 gallons of oil and when planted in rotation with wheat, camelina can increase wheat production by 15 percent. A heap (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 debris can be utilized for livestock silage. Camelina silage has an especially attractive concentration of omega-3 fats that make it an especially great animals feed prospect that is just now gaining acknowledgment in the U.S. and Canada. Camelina is fast growing, produces its own natural herbicide (allelopathy) and competes well against weeds when an even crop is developed. According to Britain's Bangor University's Centre for Alternative Land Use, "Camelina could 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 family, is native to both Europe and Central Asia and hardly a new crop on the scene: archaeological evidence indicates it has actually been cultivated in Europe for at least three millennia to produce both vegetable oil and animal fodder.

Field trials of production in Montana, presently the center of U.S. camelina research study, revealed a wide variety of results of 330-1,700 pounds of seed per acre, with oil content varying in between 29 and 40%. Optimal seeding rates have been identified to be in the 6-8 lb per acre variety, as the seeds' little size of 400,000 seeds per pound can create issues in to attain an optimum plant density of around 9 plants per sq. ft.

Camelina's capacity might enable Uzbekistan to begin breaking out of its most dolorous tradition, the imposition of a cotton monoculture that has warped the nation's attempts at agrarian reform given that attaining 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 textile industry. The process was accelerated under the Soviets. While Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan were also bought 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-dependent 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 may to diversify, in the absence of alternatives Tashkent remains wedded to cotton, producing about 3.6 million tons every year, which generates more than $1 billion while making up approximately 60 percent of the nation's hard currency income.

Beginning in the mid-1960s the Soviet federal government's regulations for Central Asian cotton production mainly bankrupted the area's scarcest resource, water. Cotton utilizes about 3.5 acre feet of water per acre of plants, leading Soviet planners to divert ever-increasing volumes of water from the region's 2 primary rivers, the Amu Darya and Syr Darya, into ineffective watering canals, leading to the dramatic shrinking of the rivers' final location, the Aral Sea. The Aral, when the world's fourth-largest inland sea with a location of 26,000 square miles, has diminished to one-quarter its initial size in among the 20th century's worst environmental disasters.

And now, the dollars and cents. Dr. Bill Schillinger at Washington State University recently explained 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 amass $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 financial investment. U.S. financiers have the money and access to the expertise of America's land grant universities. What is particular is that biofuel's market share will grow gradually; 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 investors have the academic knowledge, if they are prepared to follow the Silk Road into developing a new market. Certainly anything that decreases water use and pesticides, diversifies crop production and improves the great deal of their agrarian population will receive most cautious consideration from Central Asia's governments, and farming and vegetable oil processing plants are not just much cheaper than pipelines, they can be constructed faster.

And jatropha's biofuel capacity? Another story for another time.