Central Asia’s Vast Biofuel Opportunity

The current revelations of a International Energy Administration whistleblower that the IEA may have misshaped crucial oil projections under extreme U.S. pressure is, if real (and whistleblowers hardly ever step forward to advance their careers), a slow-burning thermonuclear surge on future global oil production. The Bush administration’s actions in pressuring the IEA to underplay the rate of decline from existing oil fields while overplaying the opportunities of finding brand-new reserves have the possible to throw federal governments’ long-term planning into turmoil.

Whatever the reality, increasing long term worldwide demands seem certain to outstrip production in the next years, particularly offered the high and increasing costs of developing brand-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 substitutes such as biofuels will play an ever-increasing function by stretching beleaguered production quotas. As market forces and increasing rates drive this technology to the forefront, among the richest prospective production areas has actually been absolutely overlooked 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 investment can be obtained. Unlike Brazil, where biofuel is produced mainly 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 shores of the Caspian, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan have seen their economies boom since of record-high energy rates, while Turkmenistan is waiting in the wings as a rising producer of gas.

Farther to the east, in Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, geographical seclusion and relatively scant hydrocarbon resources relative to their Western Caspian next-door neighbors have actually mostly hindered their ability to cash in on rising global energy demands up to now. Mountainous Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan remain largely dependent for their electrical needs on their Soviet-era hydroelectric infrastructure, however their heightened requirement to generate winter electricity has led to autumnal and winter water discharges, in turn badly impacting the farming of their western downstream neighbors Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan.

What these three downstream nations 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 become a significant manufacturer of wheat. Based upon my conversations with Central Asian federal government authorities, given the thirsty demands of cotton monoculture, foreign proposals to diversify agrarian production towards biofuel would have great appeal in Astana, Ashgabat and Tashkent and to a lesser degree Astana for those durable investors ready to bank on the future, specifically as a plant native to the area has currently shown itself in trials.

Known in the West as incorrect flax, wild flax, linseed dodder, German sesame and Siberian oilseed, camelina is bring in increased scientific 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 carried out a historic test flight using camelina-based bio-jet fuel, becoming the very first Asian provider to explore flying on fuel derived 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 operational performance ability and prospective commercial practicality.

As an alternative energy source, camelina has much to recommend it. It has a high oil material low in hydrogenated 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 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 heap (1000 kg) of camelina will contain 350 kg of oil, of which pressing 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 fats that make it a particularly great livestock feed candidate that is just now 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 developed. According to Britain’s Bangor University’s Centre for Alternative Land Use, “Camelina could be a perfect 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 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 at least 3 centuries 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 large range of outcomes of 330-1,700 pounds of seed per acre, with oil material varying in between 29 and 40%. Optimal seeding rates have been identified to be in the 6-8 lb per acre range, as the seeds’ small size of 400,000 seeds per pound can produce issues in germination to accomplish an optimal plant density of around 9 plants per sq. ft.

Camelina’s capacity could allow Uzbekistan to begin breaking out of its most dolorous legacy, the imposition of a cotton monoculture that has warped the country’s attempts at agrarian reform considering that 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 fabric industry. The procedure was sped up under the Soviets. While Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan were also ordered 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 ended up being self-sufficient in cotton; 5 decades later it had actually become 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 might to diversify, in the absence of options Tashkent stays wedded to cotton, producing about 3.6 million heaps annually, which brings in more than $1 billion while making up roughly 60 percent of the country’s hard currency earnings.

Beginning in the mid-1960s the Soviet federal government’s instructions for Central Asian cotton production largely 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 primary rivers, the Amu Darya and Syr Darya, into inefficient irrigation canals, leading to 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 one of the 20th century’s worst ecological disasters.

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 garner $230.”

Central Asia has the land, the farms, the irrigation infrastructure and a modest wage scale in contrast to America or Europe – all that’s missing is the foreign financial investment. U.S. investors have the cash and access to the knowledge of America’s land grant universities. What is particular is that biofuel’s market share will grow in time; less certain is who will enjoy the advantages of establishing it as a feasible issue in Central Asia.

If the current past is anything to go by 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 show Asian interest, American investors have the scholastic know-how, 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 lot of their agrarian population will receive most cautious factor to consider from Central Asia’s governments, and farming and vegetable oil processing plants are not only more affordable than pipelines, they can be constructed faster.

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