The recent discoveries of a International Energy Administration whistleblower that the IEA may have misshaped crucial oil projections under extreme U.S. pressure is, if real (and whistleblowers hardly ever come forward to advance their professions), a slow-burning thermonuclear surge 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 chances of discovering new reserves have the potential to toss governments' long-lasting planning into turmoil.
Whatever the reality, increasing long term international demands seem specific to overtake production in the next years, specifically provided the high and rising expenses of establishing new super-fields such as Kazakhstan's offshore Kashagan and Brazil's southern Atlantic Jupiter and Carioca fields, which will need billions in investments before their very first barrels of oil are produced.
In such a circumstance, additives and replacements such as biofuels will play an ever-increasing role by stretching beleaguered production quotas. As market forces and rising rates drive this innovation to the forefront, among the richest possible production locations has actually been totally ignored by financiers already - Central Asia. Formerly the USSR's cotton "plantation," the region is poised to end up being a major player in the production of biofuels if adequate foreign financial investment can be procured. Unlike Brazil, where biofuel is produced 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 former Soviet Caucasian and Central Asian republics, those clustered around the coasts of the Caspian, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan have 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 seclusion and relatively scant hydrocarbon resources relative to their Western Caspian neighbors have largely inhibited their capability to money in on increasing global energy demands already. Mountainous Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan remain mainly reliant for their electrical requirements on their Soviet-era hydroelectric facilities, but their heightened requirement to generate winter electrical energy has actually led to autumnal and winter water discharges, in turn seriously affecting the farming of their western downstream neighbors Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan.
What these 3 downstream countries do have nevertheless is a Soviet-era legacy 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 ended up being a significant manufacturer of wheat. Based on my conversations with Central Asian federal government authorities, given the thirsty demands of cotton monoculture, foreign propositions to diversify agrarian production towards biofuel would have terrific appeal in Astana, Ashgabat and Tashkent and to a lower extent Astana for those hardy investors going to bet on the future, particularly as a plant indigenous to the area has currently shown 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 numerous European and American business currently investigating how to produce it in commercial amounts for biofuel. In January Japan Airlines carried out a historic test flight utilizing camelina-based bio-jet fuel, ending up being the very first Asian provider to explore flying on fuel obtained from sustainable feedstocks throughout a one-hour presentation flight from Tokyo's Haneda Airport. The test was the conclusion of a 12-month evaluation of camelina's operational efficiency ability and prospective industrial viability.
As an alternative energy source, camelina has much to suggest 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 unsusceptible 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 significant wheat exporter. Another bonus offer of camelina is its tolerance of poorer, less fertile conditions. An acre sown 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 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 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 great livestock feed candidate that is simply now gaining acknowledgment 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 developed. According to Britain's Bangor University's Centre for Alternative Land Use, "Camelina might 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 native to both Europe and Central Asia and barely a new crop on the scene: historical proof shows it has been cultivated in Europe for a minimum of 3 millennia to produce both veggie oil and animal fodder.
Field trials of production in Montana, currently the center of U.S. camelina research, showed a wide variety of results of 330-1,700 lbs of seed per acre, with oil material differing in between 29 and 40%. Optimal seeding rates have been figured out to be in the 6-8 lb per acre range, as the seeds' small size of 400,000 seeds per pound can create issues in germination to attain an optimum plant density of around 9 plants per sq. ft.
Camelina's capacity might allow Uzbekistan to begin breaking out of its most dolorous legacy, the imposition of a cotton monoculture that has deformed the country's efforts at agrarian reform because accomplishing independence in 1991. Beginning in the late 19th century, the Russian federal government identified that Central Asia would become its cotton plantation to feed Moscow's growing fabric industry. The process was accelerated 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 actually become self-dependent in cotton; 5 decades later on it had actually ended up being 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 may to diversify, in the lack of alternatives Tashkent stays wedded to cotton, producing about 3.6 million loads each year, which generates more than $1 billion while making up roughly 60 percent of the nation's hard currency earnings.
Beginning in the mid-1960s the Soviet government's directives for Central Asian cotton production mostly bankrupted the region's scarcest resource, water. Cotton uses about 3.