Central Asia s Vast Biofuel Opportunity

The recent revelations of a International Energy Administration whistleblower that the IEA may have misshaped essential oil forecasts under extreme U.S. pressure is, if true (and whistleblowers hardly ever come forward to advance their careers), a slow-burning atomic explosion on future worldwide oil production. The Bush administration's actions in pushing the IEA to underplay the rate of decline from existing oil fields while overplaying the chances of discovering brand-new reserves have the prospective to throw federal governments' long-lasting planning into turmoil.


Whatever the truth, rising long term worldwide demands appear certain to overtake production in the next years, especially given the high and rising costs of developing 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 first barrels of oil are produced.


In such a scenario, additives and replacements such as biofuels will play an ever-increasing role by stretching beleaguered production quotas. As market forces and increasing prices drive this technology to the forefront, among the richest prospective production areas has actually been totally overlooked by investors up to now - Central Asia. Formerly the USSR's cotton "plantation," the region is poised to end up being a major player in the production of biofuels if enough foreign investment can be acquired. Unlike Brazil, where biofuel is manufactured 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 shores 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 gas.


Farther to the east, in Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, geographical isolation and reasonably scant hydrocarbon resources relative to their Western Caspian neighbors have mostly inhibited their capability to cash in on rising worldwide energy demands already. Mountainous Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan stay mainly dependent for their electrical requirements on their Soviet-era hydroelectric facilities, but their heightened need to create winter season electrical energy has led to autumnal and winter water discharges, in turn badly affecting the farming of their western downstream next-door neighbors Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan.


What these three downstream nations do have nevertheless is a Soviet-era tradition of agricultural production, which in Uzbekistan's and Turkmenistan case was mostly directed towards cotton production, while Kazakhstan, beginning in the 1950s with Khrushchev's "Virgin Lands" programs, has actually ended up being a major producer of wheat. Based upon my discussions with Central Asian federal government authorities, given the thirsty needs of cotton monoculture, foreign propositions to diversify agrarian production towards biofuel would have fantastic appeal in Astana, Ashgabat and Tashkent and to a lesser degree Astana for those sturdy financiers willing to bank on the future, particularly as a plant native to the area 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 a number of European and American business currently investigating how to produce it in industrial amounts for biofuel. In January Japan Airlines undertook a historical test flight utilizing camelina-based bio-jet fuel, becoming the very first Asian carrier to experiment with flying on fuel stemmed from sustainable feedstocks throughout a one-hour demonstration flight from Tokyo's Haneda Airport. The test was the culmination of a 12-month evaluation of camelina's operational performance ability and possible business viability.


As an alternative energy source, camelina has much to advise 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, requires 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 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 lot (1000 kg) of camelina will include 350 kg of oil, of which pressing can draw out 250 kg. Nothing in camelina production is as after processing, the plant's debris can be utilized for livestock silage. Camelina silage has a particularly attractive concentration of omega-3 fatty acids that make it a particularly fine animals feed candidate that is recently gaining recognition in the U.S. and Canada. Camelina is fast growing, produces its own natural herbicide (allelopathy) and competes well against 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 appropriate 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 hardly a brand-new crop on the scene: historical proof shows it has been cultivated in Europe for at least three centuries to produce both grease and animal fodder.


Field trials of production in Montana, currently the center of U.S. camelina research, revealed a vast array of results of 330-1,700 pounds of seed per acre, with oil content varying between 29 and 40%. Optimal seeding rates have been determined to be in the 6-8 lb per acre variety, as the seeds' small size of 400,000 seeds per lb can develop issues in germination to accomplish an optimal plant density of around 9 plants per sq. ft.


Camelina's capacity could enable Uzbekistan to begin breaking out of its most dolorous tradition, the imposition of a cotton monoculture that has distorted the country's attempts at agrarian reform since accomplishing 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 industry. The process was sped up under the Soviets. While Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan were likewise ordered by Moscow to plant cotton, Uzbekistan in particular 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; five decades later on it had become 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 absence of alternatives Tashkent remains wedded to cotton, producing about 3.6 million tons yearly, which generates more than $1 billion while constituting approximately 60 percent of the country's difficult currency earnings.


Beginning in the mid-1960s the Soviet federal government's instructions 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 area's 2 primary rivers, the Amu Darya and Syr Darya, into ineffective watering canals, resulting in the remarkable shrinking of the rivers' last destination, the Aral Sea. The Aral, as soon as the world's fourth-largest inland sea with an area of 26,000 square miles, has actually diminished to one-quarter its original size in among the 20th century's worst eco-friendly catastrophes.


And now, the dollars and cents. Dr. Bill Schillinger at Washington State University just recently described camelina's service 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 garner $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 financial investment. U.S. financiers have the cash 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 reap the benefits of establishing it as a practical issue in Central Asia.


If the current past is anything to go by it is not likely to be American and European investors, focused as they are on Caspian oil and gas.


But while the Japanese flight experiments show Asian interest, American financiers have the scholastic expertise, if they want to follow the Silk Road into developing a new market. Certainly anything that reduces water usage and pesticides, diversifies crop production and improves the lot of their agrarian population will get most mindful factor to consider from Central Asia's governments, and farming and veggie oil processing plants are not just more affordable than pipelines, they can be built quicker.


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