Central Asia’s Vast Biofuel Opportunity
The current discoveries of a International Energy Administration whistleblower that the IEA might have distorted key oil projections under intense U.S. pressure is, if true (and whistleblowers seldom step forward to advance their professions), a slow-burning atomic explosion on future global oil production. The Bush administration’s actions in pushing the IEA to underplay the rate of decrease from existing oil fields while overplaying the chances of discovering new reserves have the possible to throw governments’ long-term preparation into mayhem.
Whatever the truth, rising long term global needs appear particular to overtake production in the next years, especially offered the high and increasing expenses of establishing 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 first barrels of oil are produced.
In such a circumstance, additives and substitutes such as biofuels will play an ever-increasing function by stretching beleaguered production quotas. As market forces and increasing costs drive this innovation to the forefront, one of the wealthiest potential production areas has been totally ignored by investors already – Central Asia. Formerly the USSR’s cotton “plantation,” the area is poised to end up being a significant gamer in the production of biofuels if adequate foreign investment can be procured. Unlike Brazil, where biofuel is manufactured mostly from sugarcane, or the United States, where it is mainly distilled from corn, Central Asia’s ace resource is an indigenous 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 costs, while Turkmenistan is waiting in the wings as an increasing producer of gas.
Farther to the east, in Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, geographical isolation and fairly scant hydrocarbon resources relative to their Western Caspian next-door neighbors have actually mainly inhibited their capability to capitalize rising global energy needs up to now. Mountainous Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan remain largely dependent for their electrical needs on their Soviet-era hydroelectric infrastructure, but their heightened requirement to produce winter electrical power has actually led to autumnal and winter water discharges, in turn badly impacting the farming of their western downstream 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 largely directed towards cotton production, while Kazakhstan, starting in the 1950s with Khrushchev’s “Virgin Lands” programs, has ended up being a major manufacturer of wheat. Based on my discussions with Central Asian federal government authorities, provided the thirsty demands of cotton monoculture, foreign propositions to diversify agrarian production towards biofuel would have fantastic appeal in Astana, Ashgabat and Tashkent and to a lower degree Astana for those sturdy investors ready to wager on the future, specifically 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 drawing in increased scientific interest for its oleaginous qualities, with a number of European and American companies already investigating how to produce it in industrial quantities for biofuel. In January Japan Airlines undertook a historic test flight utilizing camelina-based bio-jet fuel, becoming the very first Asian carrier to try out 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 assessment of camelina’s operational performance ability and possible commercial viability.
As an alternative energy source, camelina has much to advise it. It has a high oil material low in hydrogenated fat. In contrast to Central Asia’s thirsty “king cotton,” camelina is drought-resistant and immune 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 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 include 350 kg of oil, of which pushing can draw out 250 kg. Nothing in camelina production is wasted as after processing, the plant’s particles can be utilized for animals silage. Camelina silage has a particularly attractive concentration of omega-3 fats that make it a particularly great livestock feed prospect that is simply now gaining recognition in the U.S. and Canada. Camelina is fast 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 Alternative Land Use, “Camelina might be a perfect 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 native to both Europe and Central Asia and barely a brand-new crop on the scene: archaeological proof shows it has actually been cultivated in Europe for at least 3 centuries to produce both veggie oil and animal fodder.
Field trials of production in Montana, currently the center of U.S. camelina research study, showed a large range of outcomes of 330-1,700 lbs of seed per acre, with oil material varying between 29 and 40%. Optimal seeding rates have actually been figured out to be in the 6-8 lb per acre variety, as the seeds’ little size of 400,000 seeds per pound can develop issues in germination to achieve an optimum plant density of around 9 plants per sq. ft.
Camelina’s potential could permit Uzbekistan to start breaking out of its most dolorous legacy, the imposition of a cotton monoculture that has warped the nation’s attempts at agrarian reform considering that achieving self-reliance in 1991. Beginning in the late 19th century, the Russian federal government determined that Central Asia would become its cotton plantation to feed Moscow’s growing textile industry. The process was accelerated under the Soviets. While Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan were also bought 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 ended up being 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 stays wedded to cotton, producing about 3.6 million loads yearly, which brings in more than $1 billion while making up roughly 60 percent of the nation’s difficult currency income.
Beginning in the mid-1960s the Soviet government’s instructions for Central Asian cotton production mostly 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 2 main rivers, the Amu Darya and Syr Darya, into ineffective watering canals, resulting in the significant 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 actually diminished to one-quarter its original size in among the 20th century’s worst ecological catastrophes.
And now, the dollars and cents. Dr. Bill Schillinger at Washington State University recently explained camelina’s company 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 amass $230.”
Central Asia has the land, the farms, the watering facilities and a modest wage scale in comparison to America or Europe – all that’s missing out on is the foreign investment. U.S. financiers have the cash and access to the proficiency of America’s land grant universities. What is specific is that biofuel’s market share will grow gradually; less specific is who will profit of developing it as a practical concern in Central Asia.
If the current past is anything to pass it is unlikely to be American and European financiers, focused as they are on Caspian oil and gas.
But while the Japanese flight experiments indicate Asian interest, American investors have the scholastic competence, if they want to follow the Silk Road into developing a brand-new market. Certainly anything that minimizes water usage and pesticides, diversifies crop and enhances the lot of their agrarian population will receive most careful consideration from Central Asia’s governments, and farming and vegetable oil processing plants are not just more affordable than pipelines, they can be developed faster.
And jatropha curcas‘s biofuel capacity? Another story for another time.
