Central Asia’s Vast Biofuel Opportunity

The recent revelations of a International Energy Administration whistleblower that the IEA might have distorted crucial oil forecasts under extreme U.S. pressure is, if real (and whistleblowers seldom step forward to advance their careers), a slow-burning atomic explosion on future global 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 possible to throw federal governments’ long-lasting planning into mayhem.

Whatever the reality, rising long term international demands seem particular to overtake production in the next decade, specifically provided the high and increasing costs of establishing brand-new super-fields such as Kazakhstan’s offshore 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 circumstance, additives and replacements such as biofuels will play an ever-increasing function by extending beleaguered production quotas. As market forces and increasing prices drive this to the forefront, one of the wealthiest prospective production locations has actually been totally ignored by investors already – Central Asia. Formerly the USSR’s cotton “plantation,” the area is poised to end up being a major gamer in the production of biofuels if adequate foreign financial investment can be acquired. Unlike Brazil, where biofuel is produced mostly from sugarcane, or the United States, where it is mostly distilled from corn, Central Asia’s ace resource is a native 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 prices, while Turkmenistan is waiting in the wings as a rising producer of natural gas.

Farther to the east, in Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, geographical isolation and fairly scant hydrocarbon resources relative to their Western Caspian neighbors have mostly prevented their capability to capitalize increasing international energy needs up to now. Mountainous Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan remain largely reliant for their electrical requirements on their Soviet-era hydroelectric infrastructure, but their heightened need to generate winter season electricity has caused autumnal and winter season water discharges, in turn severely impacting the agriculture of their western downstream neighbors Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan.

What these 3 downstream nations do have however is a Soviet-era tradition of agricultural production, which in Uzbekistan’s and Turkmenistan case was mainly directed towards cotton production, while Kazakhstan, starting in the 1950s with Khrushchev’s “Virgin Lands” programs, has become a major manufacturer of wheat. Based on my discussions with Central Asian government officials, offered the thirsty demands of cotton monoculture, foreign propositions to diversify agrarian production towards biofuel would have excellent appeal in Astana, Ashgabat and Tashkent and to a lower level Astana for those sturdy financiers happy to wager on the future, specifically as a plant native to the region has already proven itself in trials.

Known in the West as incorrect flax, wild flax, linseed dodder, German sesame and Siberian oilseed, camelina is attracting increased clinical interest for its oleaginous qualities, with numerous European and American business already examining how to produce it in industrial quantities 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 carrier to explore flying on fuel stemmed from sustainable feedstocks during a one-hour presentation flight from Tokyo’s Haneda Airport. The test was the conclusion of a 12-month evaluation of camelina’s functional efficiency ability and possible industrial viability.

As an alternative energy source, camelina has much to recommend 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, requires 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 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 ton (1000 kg) of camelina will include 350 kg of oil, of which pushing can extract 250 kg. Nothing in camelina production is lost 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 a particularly fine animals feed prospect that is recently gaining acknowledgment in the U.S. and Canada. Camelina is fast 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 a perfect 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 family, 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 three millennia to produce both grease and animal fodder.

Field trials of production in Montana, currently the center of U.S. camelina research, revealed a wide variety of outcomes of 330-1,700 pounds of seed per acre, with oil material varying between 29 and 40%. Optimal seeding rates have been determined to be in the 6-8 pound per acre range, as the seeds’ small size of 400,000 seeds per lb can create issues in germination to achieve an optimum plant density of around 9 plants per sq. ft.

Camelina’s capacity could enable Uzbekistan to begin breaking out of its most dolorous tradition, the imposition of a cotton monoculture that has distorted the nation’s attempts at agrarian reform given that accomplishing 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 accelerated under the Soviets. While Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan were likewise bought 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 actually ended up being self-dependent in cotton; five years later on it had actually ended up being 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 might to diversify, in the lack of options Tashkent remains wedded to cotton, producing about 3.6 million heaps each year, which generates more than $1 billion while making up around 60 percent of the nation’s hard cash income.

Beginning in the mid-1960s the Soviet federal government’s directives 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 planners to divert ever-increasing volumes of water from the region’s 2 main rivers, the Amu Darya and Syr Darya, into inefficient watering canals, leading to the significant shrinkage of the rivers’ last 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 diminished to one-quarter its original size in one of the 20th century’s worst ecological catastrophes.

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 gather $230.”

Central Asia has the land, the farms, the irrigation facilities and a modest wage scale in comparison to America or Europe – all that’s missing is the foreign investment. U.S. investors have the cash and access to the know-how of America’s land grant universities. What is specific is that biofuel’s market share will grow in time; less specific is who will reap the advantages 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 financiers, focused as they are on Caspian oil and gas.

But while the Japanese flight experiments indicate Asian interest, American financiers have the academic expertise, if they want to follow the Silk Road into establishing a new market. Certainly anything that lessens water use and pesticides, diversifies crop production and improves the great deal of their agrarian population will get most cautious factor to consider from Central Asia’s governments, and farming and veggie oil processing plants are not only more affordable than pipelines, they can be developed faster.

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