Central Asia s Vast Biofuel Opportunity

The recent revelations of a International Energy Administration whistleblower that the IEA may have misshaped key oil projections under intense U.S. pressure is, if true (and whistleblowers seldom 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 decrease from existing oil fields while overplaying the chances of finding brand-new reserves have the prospective to throw federal governments' long-lasting preparation into chaos.


Whatever the truth, increasing long term international needs seem specific to overtake production in the next years, specifically provided the high and increasing costs of establishing brand-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 first barrels of oil are produced.


In such a situation, additives and substitutes such as biofuels will play an ever-increasing function by extending beleaguered production quotas. As market forces and increasing costs drive this innovation to the forefront, one of the richest possible production locations has been completely neglected by financiers already - Central Asia. Formerly the USSR's cotton "plantation," the area is poised to end up being a significant gamer in the production of biofuels if enough foreign financial investment can be obtained. Unlike Brazil, where biofuel is manufactured 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 previous 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 rates, while Turkmenistan is waiting in the wings as a rising producer of natural gas.


Farther to the east, in Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, geographical isolation and relatively scant hydrocarbon resources relative to their Western Caspian next-door neighbors have actually largely hindered their ability to capitalize rising global energy demands up to now. Mountainous Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan remain mostly reliant for their electrical requirements on their Soviet-era hydroelectric facilities, however their heightened need to create winter season electricity has actually resulted in autumnal and winter water discharges, in turn badly affecting the farming of their western downstream next-door neighbors Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan.


What these 3 downstream nations do have nevertheless is a Soviet-era legacy of agricultural production, which in Uzbekistan's and Turkmenistan case was largely directed towards cotton production, while Kazakhstan, starting in the 1950s with Khrushchev's "Virgin Lands" programs, has ended up being a significant manufacturer of wheat. Based on my discussions with Central Asian government authorities, offered 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 lower level Astana for those durable financiers going to bet on the future, specifically as a plant native to the area has currently shown itself in trials.


Known in the West as false flax, wild flax, linseed dodder, German sesame and Siberian oilseed, camelina is attracting increased scientific interest for its oleaginous qualities, with a number of European and American companies already investigating how to produce it in industrial quantities for biofuel. In January Japan Airlines undertook a historical test flight utilizing camelina-based bio-jet fuel, becoming the first Asian carrier to explore flying on fuel obtained from sustainable feedstocks throughout a one-hour presentation flight from Tokyo's Haneda Airport. The test was the culmination of a 12-month assessment of camelina's functional efficiency capability and potential business viability.


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, needs 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 up to 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 contain 350 kg of oil, of which pushing can draw out 250 kg. Nothing in camelina production is wasted as after processing, the plant's debris can be utilized for animals silage. Camelina silage has an especially attractive concentration of omega-3 fats that make it a particularly great animals feed candidate that is simply now gaining recognition in the U.S. and Canada. Camelina is fast growing, produces its own natural herbicide (allelopathy) and competes 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 native to both Europe and Central Asia and hardly a new crop on the scene: historical proof shows it has actually been cultivated in Europe for a minimum of three millennia to produce both vegetable oil and animal fodder.


Field trials of production in Montana, presently the center of U.S. camelina research, showed a large range of results of 330-1,700 lbs of seed per acre, with oil content differing in 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 create problems in germination to accomplish an optimum plant density of around 9 plants per sq. ft.


Camelina's potential could allow Uzbekistan to begin breaking out of its most dolorous legacy, the imposition of a cotton monoculture that has distorted the nation's efforts at agrarian reform since achieving independence in 1991. Beginning in the late 19th century, the Russian federal government identified that Central Asia would become its cotton plantation to feed Moscow's growing textile market. The process was accelerated under the Soviets. While Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan were likewise 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 ended up being self-sufficient in cotton; 5 decades later it had 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 annually, which brings in more than $1 billion while making up approximately 60 percent of the nation's hard cash income.


Beginning in the mid-1960s the Soviet government's directives 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 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 shrinking of the rivers' final location, the Aral Sea. The Aral, as soon as the world's fourth-largest inland sea with an area of 26,000 square miles, has shrunk to one-quarter its initial size in one of the 20th century's worst environmental disasters.


And now, the dollars and cents. Dr. Bill Schillinger at Washington State University recently explained camelina's service 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 amass $230."


Central Asia has the land, the farms, the watering facilities and a modest wage scale in contrast to or Europe - all that's missing is the foreign investment. U.S. financiers have the money and access to the knowledge of America's land grant universities. What is particular is that biofuel's market share will grow gradually; less certain is who will profit of establishing it as a viable issue 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 brand-new market. Certainly anything that decreases water use and pesticides, diversifies crop production and enhances the great deal of their agrarian population will receive most cautious factor to consider from Central Asia's governments, and farming and grease processing plants are not only much less expensive than pipelines, they can be developed faster.


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