Central Asia’s Vast Biofuel Opportunity

The current revelations of a International Energy Administration whistleblower that the IEA might have misshaped crucial oil forecasts under extreme U.S. pressure is, if true (and whistleblowers seldom come forward to advance their careers), a slow-burning atomic explosion on future international 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 finding new reserves have the possible to toss governments’ long-term preparation into turmoil.

Whatever the truth, rising long term global demands seem particular to outstrip production in the next decade, especially provided the high and increasing costs of establishing 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 first barrels of oil are produced.

In such a scenario, ingredients and replacements such as biofuels will play an ever-increasing function by extending beleaguered production quotas. As market forces and rising prices drive this innovation to the leading edge, among the wealthiest prospective production areas has been totally ignored by investors up to now – Central Asia. Formerly the USSR’s cotton “plantation,” the region is poised to become a significant gamer in the production of biofuels if enough foreign financial investment can be acquired. Unlike Brazil, where biofuel is made mainly from sugarcane, or the United States, where it is mainly distilled from corn, Central Asia’s ace resource is a native 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 prices, while Turkmenistan is waiting in the wings as an increasing producer of natural gas.

Farther to the east, in Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, geographical seclusion and relatively little hydrocarbon resources relative to their Western Caspian next-door neighbors have mainly hindered their ability to money in on increasing worldwide energy needs up to now. Mountainous Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan stay largely reliant for their electrical needs on their Soviet-era hydroelectric infrastructure, however their heightened requirement to generate winter electrical energy has 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 three downstream countries do have however 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 actually become a major manufacturer of wheat. Based upon my discussions with Central Asian government officials, 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 lesser extent Astana for those sturdy investors ready to bet on the future, particularly as a plant indigenous to the area has actually already shown itself in trials.

Known in the West as false flax, wild flax, linseed dodder, German sesame and Siberian oilseed, camelina is bring in increased scientific interest for its oleaginous qualities, with several European and American business already examining how to produce it in commercial quantities for biofuel. In January Japan Airlines carried out a historic test flight using camelina-based bio-jet fuel, becoming the very first Asian carrier to experiment with flying on fuel stemmed from sustainable feedstocks throughout a one-hour demonstration flight from Tokyo’s Haneda Airport. The test was the conclusion of a 12-month examination of camelina’s operational efficiency ability and prospective business viability.

As an alternative energy source, camelina has much to advise 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 unsusceptible to spring freezing, requires less fertilizer and herbicides, and can be as a rotation crop with wheat, which would make it of specific interest in Kazakhstan, now Central Asia’s significant wheat exporter. Another benefit 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 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 a particularly appealing concentration of omega-3 fats that make it an especially fine livestock feed candidate that is just now gaining recognition 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 appropriate for bio-diesel production, due to its lower requirements for nitrogen fertilizer than oilseed rape.”

Camelina, a branch of the mustard household, is indigenous to both Europe and Central Asia and hardly a brand-new crop on the scene: archaeological proof suggests it has actually been cultivated in Europe for a minimum of three millennia to produce both grease and animal fodder.

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

Camelina’s capacity might permit Uzbekistan to begin breaking out of its most dolorous tradition, the imposition of a cotton monoculture that has distorted the country’s attempts at agrarian reform because achieving independence in 1991. Beginning in the late 19th century, the Russian 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 purchased 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 ended up being self-dependent in cotton; five years later on it had actually ended up being a major 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 alternatives Tashkent stays wedded to cotton, producing about 3.6 million loads each year, which generates more than $1 billion while constituting approximately 60 percent of the country’s hard cash income.

Beginning in the mid-1960s the Soviet federal government’s regulations for Central Asian cotton production largely bankrupted the region’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 region’s two primary rivers, the Amu Darya and Syr Darya, into inefficient irrigation canals, resulting in the significant shrinking of the rivers’ last location, the Aral Sea. The Aral, when the world’s fourth-largest inland sea with an area of 26,000 square miles, has actually shrunk to one-quarter its initial size in one of the 20th century’s worst ecological disasters.

And now, the dollars and cents. Dr. Bill Schillinger at Washington State University recently explained camelina’s organization design 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 infrastructure and a modest wage scale in comparison to America or Europe – all that’s missing out on is the foreign investment. U.S. financiers have the money and access to the know-how of America’s land grant universities. What is specific is that biofuel‘s market share will grow with time; less certain is who will profit of establishing it as a practical concern in Central Asia.

If the current past is anything to pass it is not likely to be American and European investors, fixated as they are on Caspian oil and gas.

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

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