Central Asia s Vast Biofuel Opportunity

The recent discoveries 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 atomic surge on future international 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 discovering new reserves have the prospective to throw governments' long-lasting preparation into mayhem.


Whatever the truth, increasing long term global demands seem particular to outstrip production in the next years, especially given the high and rising costs of brand-new super-fields such as Kazakhstan's overseas 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, additives and replacements such as biofuels will play an ever-increasing function by extending beleaguered production quotas. As market forces and rising prices drive this innovation to the forefront, among the wealthiest prospective production areas has been completely overlooked by financiers up to now - Central Asia. Formerly the USSR's cotton "plantation," the area is poised to end up being a major gamer in the production of biofuels if adequate foreign financial investment can be procured. Unlike Brazil, where biofuel is made largely 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 former Soviet Caucasian and Central Asian republics, those clustered around the coasts of the Caspian, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan have seen their economies boom due to the fact that 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 seclusion and relatively little hydrocarbon resources relative to their Western Caspian neighbors have actually mainly hindered their ability to capitalize increasing international energy needs up to now. Mountainous Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan stay mainly dependent for their electrical needs on their Soviet-era hydroelectric infrastructure, however their heightened need to generate winter electrical energy has actually caused autumnal and winter water discharges, in turn seriously impacting the agriculture of their western downstream next-door neighbors Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan.


What these 3 downstream nations do have however is a Soviet-era tradition of farming 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 become a major manufacturer of wheat. Based upon my discussions with Central Asian government officials, given the thirsty needs of cotton monoculture, foreign proposals to diversify agrarian production towards biofuel would have great appeal in Astana, Ashgabat and Tashkent and to a lower degree Astana for those hardy investors going to bank on the future, particularly as a plant indigenous to the region 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 several European and American companies currently investigating how to produce it in industrial quantities for biofuel. In January Japan Airlines carried out a historic test flight using camelina-based bio-jet fuel, becoming the first Asian carrier to explore flying on fuel stemmed from sustainable feedstocks during a one-hour demonstration flight from Tokyo's Haneda Airport. The test was the culmination of a 12-month examination of camelina's operational efficiency capability and potential industrial viability.


As an alternative energy source, camelina has much to recommend 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 particular interest in Kazakhstan, now Central Asia's significant wheat exporter. Another bonus 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 consist of 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 used for livestock silage. Camelina silage has a particularly attractive concentration of omega-3 fats that make it an especially 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 contends 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 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 hardly a brand-new crop on the scene: archaeological proof shows it has actually been cultivated in Europe for a minimum of 3 millennia to produce both veggie oil and animal fodder.


Field trials of production in Montana, currently the center of U.S. camelina research, revealed a large range of outcomes of 330-1,700 pounds of seed per acre, with oil material varying between 29 and 40%. Optimal seeding rates have actually been identified to be in the 6-8 lb per acre range, as the seeds' small 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 capacity could permit Uzbekistan to begin breaking out of its most dolorous legacy, the imposition of a cotton monoculture that has deformed the nation's efforts at agrarian reform since attaining independence 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 industry. The procedure was accelerated under the Soviets. While Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan were also bought by Moscow to sow cotton, Uzbekistan in particular was singled out to produce "white gold."


By the end of the 1930s the Soviet Union had become self-dependent in cotton; 5 decades later on 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 may to diversify, in the lack of options Tashkent remains wedded to cotton, producing about 3.6 million heaps every year, which brings in more than $1 billion while making up around 60 percent of the country's hard cash income.


Beginning in the mid-1960s the Soviet federal government's directives for Central Asian cotton production largely bankrupted the area'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 region's 2 main rivers, the Amu Darya and Syr Darya, into ineffective irrigation canals, resulting in the remarkable shrinkage 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 shrunk to one-quarter its original size in among the 20th century's worst ecological disasters.


And now, the dollars and cents. Dr. Bill Schillinger at Washington State University just recently described camelina's organization 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 garner $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 financial investment. U.S. financiers have the money and access to the know-how of America's land grant universities. What is certain is that biofuel's market share will grow gradually; less specific is who will profit of developing it as a viable issue in Central Asia.


If the current 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 suggest Asian interest, American financiers have the academic proficiency, if they want to follow the Silk Road into establishing a new market. Certainly anything that minimizes water use and pesticides, diversifies crop production and improves the great deal of their agrarian population will receive most cautious consideration from Central Asia's federal governments, and farming and grease processing plants are not only more affordable than pipelines, they can be built quicker.


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