Central Asia's Vast Biofuel Opportunity
The recent revelations of a International Energy Administration whistleblower that the IEA might have misshaped key oil forecasts under extreme U.S. pressure is, if true (and whistleblowers seldom come forward to advance their careers), a slow-burning atomic surge on future worldwide oil production. The Bush administration's actions in pushing the IEA to underplay the rate of decrease from existing oil fields while overplaying the possibilities of discovering new reserves have the prospective to throw federal governments' long-lasting preparation into turmoil.
Whatever the truth, increasing long term international demands appear particular to outstrip production in the next years, especially offered the high and increasing costs 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 scenario, additives and replacements such as biofuels will play an ever-increasing function by stretching beleaguered production quotas. As market forces and increasing costs drive this technology to the forefront, among the wealthiest potential production locations has been absolutely neglected by financiers up to now - Central Asia. Formerly the USSR's cotton "plantation," the area is poised to end up being a significant player in the production of biofuels if sufficient foreign investment can be obtained. Unlike Brazil, where biofuel is produced 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 shores of the Caspian, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan have seen their economies boom due to the fact that of record-high energy prices, while Turkmenistan is waiting in the wings as an increasing producer of gas.
Farther to the east, in Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, geographical seclusion and relatively little hydrocarbon resources relative to their Western Caspian next-door neighbors have largely prevented their capability to money in on increasing international energy demands up to now. Mountainous Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan stay largely reliant for their electrical needs on their Soviet-era hydroelectric infrastructure, but their heightened need to create winter electrical power has actually caused autumnal and winter water discharges, in turn badly impacting the agriculture of their western downstream neighbors Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan.
What these three downstream countries do have however is a Soviet-era legacy of farming production, which in Uzbekistan's and Turkmenistan case was mainly directed towards cotton production, while Kazakhstan, beginning in the 1950s with Khrushchev's "Virgin Lands" programs, has actually ended up being a significant producer of wheat. Based on my conversations with Central Asian federal government officials, offered 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 lower extent Astana for those sturdy investors going to bet on the future, especially as a plant native to the area 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 a number of European and American companies currently investigating how to produce it in business quantities for biofuel. In January Japan Airlines carried out a historic test flight using camelina-based bio-jet fuel, ending up being the first Asian provider 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 culmination of a 12-month examination of camelina's operational efficiency ability and prospective industrial practicality.
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 major wheat exporter. Another perk of camelina is its tolerance of poorer, less fertile conditions. An acre sown 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 extract 250 kg. Nothing in camelina production is wasted as after processing, the plant's debris can be utilized for animals silage. Camelina silage has a particularly attractive concentration of omega-3 fatty acids that make it an especially fine animals feed candidate that is simply now getting recognition in the U.S. and Canada. Camelina is quick growing, produces its own natural herbicide (allelopathy) and completes well against weeds when an even crop is developed. According to Britain's Bangor University's Centre for Use, "Camelina could be an ideal 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 brand-new crop on the scene: historical proof suggests it has been cultivated in Europe for a minimum of 3 centuries to produce both veggie oil and animal fodder.
Field trials of production in Montana, presently the center of U.S. camelina research, revealed a vast array of results of 330-1,700 lbs 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 create issues in germination to accomplish an optimal plant density of around 9 plants per sq. ft.
Camelina's potential could permit Uzbekistan to start breaking out of its most dolorous tradition, the imposition of a cotton monoculture that has distorted the nation's attempts at agrarian reform since attaining self-reliance 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 textile market. The process was accelerated under the Soviets. While Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan were also bought 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; 5 years 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 might to diversify, in the lack of options Tashkent remains wedded to cotton, producing about 3.6 million tons every year, which brings in more than $1 billion while constituting roughly 60 percent of the nation's tough currency income.
Beginning in the mid-1960s the Soviet government's directives for Central Asian cotton production largely bankrupted the area's scarcest resource, water. Cotton utilizes 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 main rivers, the Amu Darya and Syr Darya, into ineffective irrigation canals, leading to the dramatic shrinkage of the rivers' last destination, the Aral Sea. The Aral, when the world's fourth-largest inland sea with an area of 26,000 square miles, has diminished to one-quarter its initial size in one of the 20th century's worst ecological 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 generate $224 per acre; 28-bushel white wheat at $8.23 per bushel would amass $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 investment. U.S. investors have the money and access to the proficiency of America's land grant universities. What is particular is that biofuel's market share will grow with time; less certain is who will profit of establishing it as a viable concern in Central Asia.
If the current past is anything to go by it is not likely to be American and European investors, fixated as they are on Caspian oil and gas.
But while the Japanese flight experiments suggest Asian interest, American financiers have the scholastic expertise, if they are ready to follow the Silk Road into developing a brand-new market. Certainly anything that reduces 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 federal governments, and farming and vegetable oil processing plants are not only much cheaper than pipelines, they can be constructed faster.
And jatropha's biofuel capacity? Another story for another time.