Central Asia's Vast Biofuel Opportunity
The recent revelations of a International Energy Administration whistleblower that the IEA may have distorted key oil projections under extreme U.S. pressure is, if true (and whistleblowers hardly ever step forward to advance their professions), a slow-burning atomic surge on future worldwide oil production. The Bush administration's actions in pressuring the IEA to underplay the rate of decrease from existing oil fields while overplaying the opportunities of finding brand-new reserves have the potential to throw federal governments' long-lasting preparation into chaos.
Whatever the reality, rising long term worldwide demands seem certain to overtake production in the next years, specifically provided the high and rising costs 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 alternatives such as biofuels will play an ever-increasing role by extending beleaguered production quotas. As market forces and increasing costs drive this innovation to the leading edge, among the richest potential production areas has been absolutely overlooked by investors up to now - Central Asia. Formerly the USSR's cotton "plantation," the area is poised to end up being a major player in the production of biofuels if sufficient foreign investment can be acquired. Unlike Brazil, where biofuel is produced largely from sugarcane, or the United States, where it is mostly 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 actually seen their economies boom since of record-high energy prices, while Turkmenistan is waiting in the wings as an increasing manufacturer of natural gas.
Farther to the east, in Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, geographical isolation and fairly little hydrocarbon resources relative to their Western Caspian next-door neighbors have mainly inhibited their capability to capitalize rising global energy demands up to now. Mountainous Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan remain mostly dependent for their electrical needs on their Soviet-era hydroelectric facilities, but their increased requirement to create winter season electricity has actually resulted in autumnal and winter water discharges, in turn significantly impacting the farming of their western downstream next-door neighbors Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan.
What these three downstream countries do have nevertheless is a Soviet-era tradition of farming production, which in Uzbekistan's and Turkmenistan case was largely directed towards cotton production, while Kazakhstan, beginning in the 1950s with Khrushchev's "Virgin Lands" programs, has actually become a significant producer of wheat. Based on my discussions with Central Asian government officials, offered 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 extent Astana for those sturdy financiers happy to bet on the future, specifically as a plant indigenous to the area has already proven itself in trials.
Known in the West as false flax, wild flax, linseed dodder, German sesame and Siberian oilseed, camelina is bring in increased clinical interest for its oleaginous qualities, with a number of European and American companies already examining how to produce it in business quantities for biofuel. In January Japan Airlines carried out a historic test flight utilizing camelina-based bio-jet fuel, becoming the first Asian provider to try out flying on fuel derived from sustainable feedstocks throughout a one-hour presentation flight from Tokyo's Haneda Airport. The test was the conclusion of a 12-month evaluation of camelina's functional performance capability and prospective business viability.
As an alternative energy source, camelina has much to suggest it. It has a high oil material low in saturated 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 particular interest in Kazakhstan, now Central Asia's major wheat exporter. Another perk 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 used for animals silage. Camelina silage has a particularly attractive concentration of omega-3 fatty acids that make it an especially fine livestock feed that is just now acquiring 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 established. 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 indigenous to both Europe and Central Asia and barely a new crop on the scene: historical evidence indicates it has been cultivated in Europe for at least 3 centuries to produce both grease and animal fodder.
Field trials of production in Montana, currently the center of U.S. camelina research, revealed a wide variety of results of 330-1,700 pounds of seed per acre, with oil content varying in between 29 and 40%. Optimal seeding rates have been figured out to be in the 6-8 pound per acre variety, as the seeds' small size of 400,000 seeds per lb can produce issues in germination to attain 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 tradition, the imposition of a cotton monoculture that has deformed the country's efforts at agrarian reform given that achieving self-reliance 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 fabric industry. The process was accelerated under the Soviets. While Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan were likewise bought 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 become self-sufficient in cotton; five decades later on it had actually ended up being a major 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 absence of alternatives Tashkent remains wedded to cotton, producing about 3.6 million lots each year, which brings in more than $1 billion while making up around 60 percent of the country's hard currency income.
Beginning in the mid-1960s the Soviet federal government's directives 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 coordinators to divert ever-increasing volumes of water from the area's two primary rivers, the Amu Darya and Syr Darya, into inefficient watering canals, leading to the dramatic shrinkage of the rivers' last location, the Aral Sea. The Aral, as soon as the world's fourth-largest inland sea with a location of 26,000 square miles, has actually diminished to one-quarter its original 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 described camelina's business design 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 irrigation infrastructure and a modest wage scale in comparison to America or Europe - all that's missing out on is the foreign 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 over time; less certain is who will profit of establishing it as a practical concern in Central Asia.
If the current past is anything to go by 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 investors have the academic expertise, if they want to follow the Silk Road into establishing a brand-new market. Certainly anything that reduces water usage and pesticides, diversifies crop production and enhances the great deal of their agrarian population will get most careful factor to consider from Central Asia's federal governments, and farming and grease processing plants are not only much cheaper than pipelines, they can be developed more quickly.
And jatropha curcas's biofuel potential? Another story for another time.