Central Asia’s Vast Biofuel Opportunity

The current discoveries of a International Energy Administration whistleblower that the IEA might have distorted crucial oil projections under extreme U.S. pressure is, if real (and whistleblowers rarely step forward to advance their careers), a slow-burning thermonuclear surge on future global oil production. The Bush administration’s actions in pushing the IEA to underplay the rate of decline from existing oil fields while overplaying the opportunities of discovering new reserves have the prospective to toss federal governments’ long-term preparation into chaos.

Whatever the truth, increasing long term worldwide demands appear specific to overtake production in the next years, especially given the high and increasing expenses of establishing new super-fields such as Kazakhstan’s offshore Kashagan and Brazil’s southern Atlantic Jupiter and Carioca fields, which will require billions in financial investments before their first barrels of oil are produced.

In such a circumstance, ingredients and alternatives such as biofuels will play an ever-increasing role by extending beleaguered production quotas. As market forces and rising costs drive this innovation to the leading edge, one of 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 major player in the production of biofuels if sufficient foreign financial investment can be procured. Unlike Brazil, where biofuel is manufactured largely from sugarcane, or the United States, where it is mainly 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 seen their economies boom since of record-high energy costs, while Turkmenistan is waiting in the wings as a rising 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 neighbors have largely hindered their capability to capitalize increasing international energy demands up to now. Mountainous Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan remain largely reliant for their electrical needs on their Soviet-era hydroelectric facilities, but their increased need to generate winter electrical power has caused autumnal and winter season water discharges, in turn severely affecting the agriculture of their western downstream next-door neighbors Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan.

What these 3 downstream countries do have nevertheless is a Soviet-era tradition 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 become a significant producer of wheat. Based upon my discussions with Central Asian federal government authorities, given the thirsty demands of cotton monoculture, foreign propositions to diversify agrarian production towards biofuel would have excellent appeal in Astana, Ashgabat and Tashkent and to a lower degree Astana for those sturdy investors happy to bank on the future, especially as a plant indigenous to the area has already proven itself in trials.

Known in the West as incorrect 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 currently investigating 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, ending up being the first to experiment with flying on fuel originated from sustainable feedstocks during a one-hour presentation flight from Tokyo’s Haneda Airport. The test was the conclusion of a 12-month evaluation of camelina’s operational efficiency ability and prospective 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 unsusceptible 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 significant wheat exporter. Another perk of camelina is its tolerance of poorer, less fertile conditions. An acre sown 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 include 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 animals silage. Camelina silage has an especially attractive concentration of omega-3 fats that make it an especially great livestock feed prospect that is just now getting recognition 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 might be a perfect low-input crop suitable 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 barely a new crop on the scene: archaeological evidence indicates 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, currently the center of U.S. camelina research, showed a broad range of outcomes of 330-1,700 lbs of seed per acre, with oil content differing between 29 and 40%. Optimal seeding rates have actually been figured out to be in the 6-8 pound per acre variety, as the seeds’ little size of 400,000 seeds per lb can produce problems in germination to achieve an optimal plant density of around 9 plants per sq. ft.

Camelina’s potential might allow Uzbekistan to begin breaking out of its most dolorous tradition, the imposition of a cotton monoculture that has deformed the country’s attempts at agrarian reform considering that accomplishing independence in 1991. Beginning in the late 19th century, the Russian government identified that Central Asia would become its cotton plantation to feed Moscow’s growing fabric industry. The process was accelerated under the Soviets. While Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan were also purchased 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 actually become self-dependent in cotton; 5 decades later it had actually 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 options Tashkent stays wedded to cotton, producing about 3.6 million heaps each year, which brings in more than $1 billion while constituting approximately 60 percent of the nation’s hard cash 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 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 two main rivers, the Amu Darya and Syr Darya, into inefficient irrigation canals, resulting in the dramatic shrinkage of the rivers’ last location, the Aral Sea. The Aral, when the world’s fourth-largest inland sea with a location of 26,000 square miles, has shrunk to one-quarter its initial size in among the 20th century’s worst environmental catastrophes.

And now, the dollars and cents. Dr. Bill Schillinger at Washington State University just recently explained camelina’s company 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 irrigation infrastructure and a modest wage scale in contrast to America or Europe – all that’s missing is the foreign financial investment. U.S. financiers have the money and access to the knowledge of America’s land grant universities. What is specific is that biofuel‘s market share will grow with time; less particular 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, focused as they are on Caspian oil and gas.

But while the Japanese flight experiments show Asian interest, American financiers have the academic know-how, if they want to follow the Silk Road into developing a new market. Certainly anything that minimizes water usage and pesticides, diversifies crop production and improves the great deal of their agrarian population will receive most careful factor to consider from Central Asia’s governments, and farming and grease processing plants are not just much less expensive than pipelines, they can be built quicker.

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