Central Asia’s Vast Biofuel Opportunity

The current discoveries of a International Energy Administration whistleblower that the IEA might have misshaped crucial oil projections under extreme U.S. pressure is, if true (and whistleblowers rarely come forward to advance their careers), a slow-burning atomic surge on future international oil production. The Bush administration’s actions in pressing the IEA to underplay the rate of decline from existing oil fields while overplaying the possibilities of finding new reserves have the possible to throw governments’ long-term preparation into turmoil.

Whatever the reality, rising long term global demands appear specific to overtake production in the next years, 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 scenario, ingredients and replacements such as biofuels will play an ever-increasing role by stretching beleaguered production quotas. As market forces and increasing prices drive this innovation to the forefront, among the richest potential 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 major gamer in the production of biofuels if enough foreign investment can be obtained. Unlike Brazil, where biofuel is produced 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 former Soviet Caucasian and Central Asian republics, those clustered around the coasts of the Caspian, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan have actually seen their economies boom due to the fact that of record-high energy prices, 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 neighbors have mainly prevented their capability to capitalize increasing international energy needs already. Mountainous Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan stay mostly dependent for their electrical requirements on their Soviet-era hydroelectric infrastructure, however their heightened requirement to create winter electrical energy has caused autumnal and winter water discharges, in turn severely impacting the farming of their western downstream next-door neighbors Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan.

What these three downstream countries do have nevertheless 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 ended up being a significant manufacturer of wheat. Based upon my conversations with Central Asian federal government authorities, 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 degree Astana for those sturdy financiers prepared to bank on the future, especially as a plant native to the region has currently proven itself in trials.

Known in the West as false flax, wild flax, linseed dodder, German sesame and Siberian oilseed, camelina is bring in increased clinical interest for its oleaginous qualities, with numerous European and American business already investigating how to produce it in business quantities for biofuel. In January Japan Airlines undertook a historical test flight utilizing camelina-based bio-jet fuel, ending up being the first Asian carrier to explore flying on fuel derived from sustainable feedstocks during a one-hour demonstration flight from Tokyo’s Haneda Airport. The test was the conclusion of a 12-month assessment of camelina’s functional performance capability and potential business practicality.

As an alternative energy source, camelina has much to recommend it. It has a high oil content 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 utilized as a rotation crop with wheat, which would make it of particular 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 approximately 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 consist of 350 kg of oil, of which pushing can extract 250 kg. Nothing in camelina production is wasted as after processing, the plant’s particles can be used for livestock silage. Camelina silage has an especially attractive concentration of omega-3 fatty acids that make it a particularly great animals feed prospect that is recently acquiring 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 family, is native to both Europe and Central Asia and barely a new crop on the scene: archaeological proof shows it has actually been cultivated in Europe for a minimum of three centuries to produce both grease and animal fodder.

Field trials of production in Montana, currently the center of U.S. camelina research study, revealed a large range of outcomes of 330-1,700 pounds of seed per acre, with oil content differing between 29 and 40%. Optimal seeding rates have been determined to be in the 6-8 lb per acre variety, as the seeds’ little size of 400,000 seeds per lb can produce problems in germination to accomplish an optimum plant density of around 9 plants per sq. ft.

Camelina’s capacity might enable Uzbekistan to begin breaking out of its most dolorous tradition, the imposition of a cotton monoculture that has warped the country’s attempts at agrarian reform given that accomplishing independence in 1991. Beginning in the late 19th century, the Russian federal government identified that Central Asia would become its cotton to feed Moscow’s growing fabric industry. The procedure was sped up under the Soviets. While Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan were likewise bought by Moscow to sow cotton, Uzbekistan in specific 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 actually ended up being a significant 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 stays wedded to cotton, producing about 3.6 million lots every year, which generates more than $1 billion while making up approximately 60 percent of the country’s hard cash earnings.

Beginning in the mid-1960s the Soviet government’s directives for Central Asian cotton production mainly 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 area’s 2 primary rivers, the Amu Darya and Syr Darya, into inefficient watering canals, resulting in the remarkable shrinking of the rivers’ final destination, the Aral Sea. The Aral, when the world’s fourth-largest inland sea with a location of 26,000 square miles, has actually shrunk to one-quarter its initial size in among the 20th century’s worst ecological 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 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 facilities and a modest wage scale in comparison to America or Europe – all that’s missing is the foreign investment. U.S. financiers have the cash and access to the knowledge of America’s land grant universities. What is certain is that biofuel‘s market share will grow with time; less particular is who will profit of establishing it as a viable concern in Central Asia.

If the recent past is anything to go by it is unlikely to be American and European financiers, fixated as they are on Caspian oil and gas.

But while the Japanese flight experiments indicate Asian interest, American financiers have the academic competence, 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 enhances the great deal 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 much more affordable than pipelines, they can be constructed faster.

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