Central Asia’s Vast Biofuel Opportunity

The recent discoveries of a International Energy Administration whistleblower that the IEA might have distorted crucial oil forecasts under intense U.S. pressure is, if true (and whistleblowers hardly ever step forward to advance their careers), a slow-burning atomic surge on future worldwide oil production. The Bush administration’s actions in pressing the IEA to underplay the rate of decrease from existing oil fields while overplaying the opportunities of discovering new reserves have the potential to toss federal governments’ long-lasting preparation into turmoil.

Whatever the reality, increasing long term international demands appear specific to overtake production in the next decade, specifically offered the high and increasing expenses of developing 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 scenario, ingredients and alternatives such as biofuels will play an ever-increasing role by stretching beleaguered production quotas. As market forces and increasing prices drive this technology to the forefront, among the wealthiest prospective production areas has been totally overlooked by financiers already – Central Asia. Formerly the USSR’s cotton “plantation,” the area is poised to become a significant player in the production of biofuels if sufficient foreign investment can be procured. Unlike Brazil, where biofuel is produced mostly from sugarcane, or the United States, where it is primarily 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 rates, while Turkmenistan is waiting in the wings as an increasing manufacturer of natural gas.

Farther to the east, in Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, geographical isolation and relatively little hydrocarbon resources relative to their Western Caspian next-door neighbors have actually mostly inhibited their capability to capitalize increasing global energy demands already. Mountainous Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan stay mainly reliant for their electrical requirements on their Soviet-era hydroelectric facilities, however their increased need to generate winter season electrical power has caused autumnal and winter season water discharges, in turn badly impacting the of their western downstream neighbors Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan.

What these three downstream nations do have however is a Soviet-era legacy 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 ended up being a major manufacturer of wheat. Based on my discussions with Central Asian government officials, given the thirsty needs of cotton monoculture, foreign proposals to diversify agrarian production towards biofuel would have terrific appeal in Astana, Ashgabat and Tashkent and to a lower extent Astana for those hardy financiers going to bet on the future, specifically as a plant native 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 attracting increased clinical interest for its oleaginous qualities, with several European and American companies currently examining how to produce it in commercial amounts for biofuel. In January Japan Airlines undertook a historic test flight utilizing camelina-based bio-jet fuel, becoming the first Asian provider to try out flying on fuel originated from sustainable feedstocks throughout a one-hour demonstration flight from Tokyo’s Haneda Airport. The test was the culmination of a 12-month assessment of camelina’s functional performance ability and prospective industrial practicality.

As an alternative energy source, camelina has much to suggest 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 used 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 lot (1000 kg) of camelina will include 350 kg of oil, of which pushing can draw out 250 kg. Nothing in camelina production is lost as after processing, the plant’s debris can be used for animals silage. Camelina silage has a particularly attractive concentration of omega-3 fats that make it a particularly fine livestock feed prospect that is simply now gaining acknowledgment in the U.S. and Canada. Camelina is quick 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 could 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 family, is native to both Europe and Central Asia and hardly a new crop on the scene: archaeological evidence indicates it has actually been cultivated in Europe for a minimum of 3 millennia to produce both vegetable oil and animal fodder.

Field trials of production in Montana, currently the center of U.S. camelina research, revealed a large range of results of 330-1,700 lbs of seed per acre, with oil material differing 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 develop issues in germination to accomplish 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 legacy, the imposition of a cotton monoculture that has warped the nation’s efforts at agrarian reform given that accomplishing self-reliance in 1991. Beginning in the late 19th century, the Russian government determined that Central Asia would become its cotton plantation to feed Moscow’s growing fabric market. The process was accelerated under the Soviets. While Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan were also purchased 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 become self-dependent in cotton; five decades later 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 options Tashkent remains wedded to cotton, producing about 3.6 million loads every year, which generates more than $1 billion while constituting approximately 60 percent of the nation’s hard currency income.

Beginning in the mid-1960s the Soviet government’s instructions for Central Asian cotton production mainly bankrupted the region’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 ineffective watering canals, resulting in the remarkable 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 original size in among the 20th century’s worst eco-friendly 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 generate $224 per acre; 28-bushel white wheat at $8.23 per bushel would gather $230.”

Central Asia has the land, the farms, the watering infrastructure and a modest wage scale in contrast to America or Europe – all that’s missing is the foreign investment. U.S. investors have the money and access to the competence of America’s land grant universities. What is certain is that biofuel‘s market share will grow in time; less specific is who will profit of developing it as a feasible issue 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 show Asian interest, American investors have the scholastic know-how, if they want to follow the Silk Road into establishing a new market. Certainly anything that reduces water usage and pesticides, diversifies crop production and enhances the great deal of their agrarian population will receive most mindful consideration from Central Asia’s federal governments, and farming and grease processing plants are not only much cheaper than pipelines, they can be constructed more quickly.

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