Central Asia’s Vast Biofuel Opportunity

The current revelations of a International Energy Administration whistleblower that the IEA might have misshaped key oil forecasts under intense U.S. pressure is, if true (and whistleblowers seldom come forward to advance their professions), 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 possibilities of discovering new reserves have the potential to throw federal governments’ long-term preparation into mayhem.

Whatever the reality, rising long term international demands seem certain to overtake production in the next decade, specifically provided the high and rising expenses of developing new super-fields such as Kazakhstan’s overseas Kashagan and Brazil’s southern Atlantic Jupiter and Carioca fields, which will require billions in investments before their very first barrels of oil are produced.

In such a circumstance, ingredients and replacements such as biofuels will play an ever-increasing role by extending beleaguered production quotas. As market forces and rising costs drive this technology to the leading edge, one of the richest potential production locations has been absolutely overlooked by financiers already – Central Asia. Formerly the USSR’s cotton “plantation,” the area is poised to become a major gamer in the production of biofuels if enough foreign investment can be acquired. Unlike Brazil, where biofuel is manufactured mostly from sugarcane, or the United States, where it is primarily 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 actually seen their economies boom because of record-high energy costs, while Turkmenistan is waiting in the wings as an increasing 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 next-door neighbors have actually largely hindered their capability to capitalize increasing worldwide energy demands already. Mountainous Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan remain largely reliant for their electrical needs on their Soviet-era hydroelectric facilities, but their heightened need to generate winter electrical energy has actually resulted in autumnal and winter season water discharges, in turn badly 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 mainly towards cotton production, while Kazakhstan, starting in the 1950s with Khrushchev’s “Virgin Lands” programs, has become a significant producer of wheat. Based on my discussions with Central Asian federal government officials, offered the thirsty needs of cotton monoculture, foreign propositions to diversify agrarian production towards biofuel would have fantastic appeal in Astana, Ashgabat and Tashkent and to a lesser degree Astana for those hardy financiers prepared to bet on the future, specifically as a plant indigenous 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 scientific interest for its oleaginous qualities, with a number of European and American business currently examining 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 experiment with flying on fuel originated 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 efficiency capability and prospective commercial viability.

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 unsusceptible to spring freezing, needs 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 significant wheat exporter. Another reward 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 contain 350 kg of oil, of which pressing can extract 250 kg. Nothing in camelina production is squandered as after processing, the plant’s debris can be used for livestock silage. Camelina silage has a particularly appealing concentration of omega-3 fats that make it a particularly great livestock feed prospect that is recently getting acknowledgment in the U.S. and Canada. Camelina is fast growing, produces its own natural herbicide (allelopathy) and completes well against 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 ideal 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 hardly a new crop on the scene: historical evidence suggests it has been cultivated in Europe for a minimum of 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, showed a vast array of results of 330-1,700 pounds of seed per acre, with oil material differing in between 29 and 40%. Optimal seeding rates have actually been determined 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 accomplish an optimal plant density of around 9 plants per sq. ft.

Camelina’s capacity might permit Uzbekistan to begin breaking out of its most dolorous legacy, the imposition of a cotton monoculture that has deformed the country’s attempts at agrarian reform because 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 market. The process was accelerated under the Soviets. While Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan were likewise ordered 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 become self-sufficient in cotton; five years later it had 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 absence of alternatives Tashkent remains wedded to cotton, producing about 3.6 million heaps yearly, which generates more than $1 billion while constituting roughly 60 percent of the country’s hard cash income.

Beginning in the mid-1960s the Soviet government’s regulations for Central Asian cotton production mostly bankrupted the area’s scarcest resource, water. Cotton utilizes about 3.5 acre feet of water per acre of plants, leading Soviet organizers to divert ever-increasing volumes of water from the area’s 2 primary rivers, the Amu Darya and Syr Darya, into inefficient irrigation canals, resulting in the significant 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 original size in among the 20th century’s worst ecological catastrophes.

And now, the dollars and cents. Dr. Bill Schillinger at Washington State University just 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 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 investment. U.S. investors have the cash and access to the expertise of America’s land grant universities. What is particular is that biofuel’s market share will grow over time; less specific is who will profit of developing it as a practical issue in Central Asia.

If the recent past is anything to go by 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 scholastic competence, if they want to follow the Silk Road into developing a new market. Certainly anything that decreases water use and pesticides, diversifies crop production and enhances the lot of their agrarian population will get most mindful factor to consider from Central Asia’s federal governments, and farming and grease processing plants are not only more affordable than pipelines, they can be developed quicker.

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