Central Asia’s Vast Biofuel Opportunity

The current discoveries of a International Energy Administration whistleblower that the IEA may have misshaped key oil projections under extreme U.S. pressure is, if true (and whistleblowers hardly ever come forward to advance their careers), a slow-burning thermonuclear surge on future global oil production. The Bush administration’s actions in pressing the IEA to underplay the rate of decline from existing oil fields while overplaying the opportunities of discovering new reserves have the possible to toss federal governments’ long-lasting planning into chaos.

Whatever the reality, rising long term international demands appear particular to outstrip production in the next decade, specifically given the high and increasing 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 investments before their very first barrels of oil are produced.

In such a circumstance, additives and alternatives such as biofuels will play an ever-increasing role by stretching beleaguered production quotas. As market forces and rising costs drive this technology to the leading edge, one of the wealthiest potential production areas has been absolutely overlooked by investors up to now – Central Asia. Formerly the USSR’s cotton “plantation,” the area is poised to end up being a significant gamer in the production of biofuels if adequate foreign investment can be procured. Unlike Brazil, where biofuel is manufactured mainly 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 previous Soviet Caucasian and Central Asian republics, those clustered around the coasts of the Caspian, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan have actually seen their economies boom since 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 reasonably little hydrocarbon resources relative to their Western Caspian neighbors have actually largely hindered their capability to money in on rising international energy demands already. Mountainous Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan stay mainly dependent for their electrical needs on their Soviet-era hydroelectric facilities, but their increased requirement to generate winter electrical power has resulted in autumnal and winter water discharges, in turn seriously impacting the agriculture of their western downstream neighbors Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan.

What these 3 downstream nations do have nevertheless is a Soviet-era legacy of agricultural 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 actually ended up being a major manufacturer of wheat. Based on my conversations with Central Asian federal government officials, offered the thirsty demands of cotton monoculture, foreign proposals to diversify agrarian production towards biofuel would have fantastic appeal in Astana, Ashgabat and Tashkent and to a lower level Astana for those hardy investors ready to bank on the future, especially as a plant indigenous to the region has already proven itself in trials.

Known in the West as false flax, wild flax, linseed dodder, German sesame and Siberian oilseed, camelina is attracting increased clinical interest for its oleaginous qualities, with a number of European and American business currently investigating how to produce it in commercial amounts for biofuel. In January Japan Airlines undertook a historical test flight utilizing camelina-based bio-jet fuel, becoming the very first Asian carrier to explore flying on fuel originated 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 performance ability and possible commercial practicality.

As an alternative energy source, camelina has much to advise it. It has a high oil material low in saturated 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 specific 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 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 utilized for animals silage. Camelina silage has an especially appealing concentration of omega-3 fatty acids that make it an especially fine livestock feed prospect that is simply now gaining recognition in the U.S. and Canada. Camelina is quick growing, produces its own natural herbicide (allelopathy) and competes 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 appropriate 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 three centuries 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 vast array of outcomes of 330-1,700 lbs of seed per acre, with oil material differing between 29 and 40%. Optimal seeding rates have actually been identified to be in the 6-8 lb per acre variety, as the seeds’ little size of 400,000 seeds per pound can develop problems in germination to accomplish an optimal plant density of around 9 plants per sq. ft.

Camelina’s potential could permit Uzbekistan to begin breaking out of its most dolorous legacy, the imposition of a cotton monoculture that has deformed the nation’s efforts at agrarian reform given 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 textile industry. The procedure was sped up 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; five years later on it had actually 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 may to diversify, in the lack of alternatives Tashkent remains wedded to cotton, producing about 3.6 million heaps each year, which generates more than $1 billion while constituting around 60 percent of the country’s difficult currency income.

Beginning in the mid-1960s the Soviet federal government’s instructions for Central Asian cotton production largely bankrupted the region’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 two primary rivers, the Amu Darya and Syr Darya, into inefficient irrigation canals, resulting in the remarkable shrinking of the rivers’ final destination, the Aral Sea. The Aral, as soon as the world’s fourth-largest inland sea with an area of 26,000 square miles, has actually diminished to one-quarter its original size in one of the 20th century’s worst environmental catastrophes.

And now, the dollars and cents. Dr. Bill Schillinger at Washington State University recently explained camelina’s business 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 watering facilities and a modest wage scale in contrast to America or Europe – all that’s missing is the foreign investment. U.S. financiers have the money and access to the know-how of America’s land grant universities. What is particular is that biofuel‘s market share will grow with time; less particular is who will profit of establishing it as a viable issue in Central Asia.

If the current 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 show Asian interest, American financiers have the academic proficiency, if they want to follow the Silk Road into establishing a brand-new market. Certainly anything that minimizes water use and pesticides, diversifies crop production and improves the lot of their agrarian population will get most careful factor to consider from Central Asia’s federal governments, and farming and plants are not just much less expensive than pipelines, they can be constructed quicker.

And jatropha curcas‘s biofuel potential? Another story for another time.