Central Asia’s Vast Biofuel Opportunity

The current discoveries of a International Energy Administration whistleblower that the IEA might have distorted essential oil forecasts under extreme U.S. pressure is, if real (and whistleblowers rarely step forward to advance their careers), a slow-burning thermonuclear 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 opportunities of discovering new reserves have the prospective to toss governments’ long-lasting preparation into turmoil.

Whatever the reality, rising long term worldwide demands appear particular to outstrip production in the next years, especially offered the high and rising expenses of establishing brand-new super-fields such as Kazakhstan’s overseas Kashagan and Brazil’s southern Atlantic Jupiter and Carioca fields, which will need billions in financial investments before their very first barrels of oil are produced.

In such a circumstance, 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 innovation to the forefront, among the richest potential production areas has actually been totally overlooked by financiers up to now – Central Asia. Formerly the USSR’s cotton “plantation,” the region is poised to become a significant player in the production of biofuels if sufficient foreign investment can be acquired. Unlike Brazil, where biofuel is manufactured 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 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 producer of natural gas.

Farther to the east, in Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, geographical seclusion and fairly scant hydrocarbon resources relative to their Western Caspian next-door neighbors have actually largely prevented their ability to cash in on rising global energy demands up to now. Mountainous Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan stay largely reliant for their electrical requirements on their Soviet-era hydroelectric facilities, however their increased requirement to create winter electrical power has actually led to 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 legacy 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 manufacturer of wheat. Based upon my discussions with Central Asian federal government officials, provided the thirsty needs of cotton monoculture, foreign proposals to diversify agrarian production towards biofuel would have fantastic appeal in Astana, Ashgabat and Tashkent and to a lesser degree Astana for those sturdy investors ready to bet on the future, particularly as a plant native to the region has actually already 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 several European and American companies currently 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 try out flying on fuel originated from sustainable feedstocks throughout a one-hour demonstration flight from Tokyo’s Haneda Airport. The test was the conclusion of a 12-month examination of camelina’s functional performance capability and potential business practicality.

As an alternative energy source, camelina has much to advise 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, needs less fertilizer and herbicides, and can be utilized as a rotation crop with wheat, which would make it of specific 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 as much as 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 draw out 250 kg. Nothing in camelina production is squandered as after processing, the plant’s particles can be utilized for animals silage. has an especially attractive concentration of omega-3 fatty acids that make it a particularly fine livestock 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 could be an ideal low-input crop ideal 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 barely a new crop on the scene: historical proof indicates it has been cultivated in Europe for a minimum of three centuries to produce both veggie oil and animal fodder.

Field trials of production in Montana, presently the center of U.S. camelina research, showed a wide variety of results of 330-1,700 pounds 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 range, as the seeds’ little size of 400,000 seeds per pound can create problems in germination to attain an ideal plant density of around 9 plants per sq. ft.

Camelina’s capacity might enable Uzbekistan to start breaking out of its most dolorous tradition, the imposition of a cotton monoculture that has warped the nation’s efforts at agrarian reform because achieving self-reliance 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 market. The process was accelerated under the Soviets. While Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan were likewise purchased 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 actually become self-sufficient in cotton; five decades later on it had ended up being a major 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 lack of alternatives Tashkent remains wedded to cotton, producing about 3.6 million loads annually, which generates 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 mainly bankrupted the area’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 two primary rivers, the Amu Darya and Syr Darya, into ineffective irrigation canals, leading to the significant shrinkage of the rivers’ last destination, the Aral Sea. The Aral, once the world’s fourth-largest inland sea with an area of 26,000 square miles, has actually shrunk to one-quarter its initial size in among the 20th century’s worst ecological disasters.

And now, the dollars and cents. Dr. Bill Schillinger at Washington State University recently explained camelina’s organization 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 gather $230.”

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

If the recent past is anything to pass it is not likely 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 expertise, if they are ready to follow the Silk Road into establishing a 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 mindful factor to consider from Central Asia’s governments, and farming and vegetable oil processing plants are not only much less expensive than pipelines, they can be constructed more quickly.

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