Central Asia s Vast Biofuel Opportunity
The current revelations of a International Energy Administration whistleblower that the IEA may have misshaped crucial oil forecasts under extreme U.S. is, if real (and whistleblowers hardly ever step forward to advance their careers), a slow-burning thermonuclear explosion on future worldwide oil production. The Bush administration's actions in pressing the IEA to underplay the rate of decline from existing oil fields while overplaying the chances of discovering brand-new reserves have the potential to toss governments' long-lasting preparation into mayhem.
Whatever the reality, rising long term global needs appear particular to overtake production in the next decade, especially given the high and increasing expenses of establishing brand-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 substitutes such as biofuels will play an ever-increasing function by extending beleaguered production quotas. As market forces and increasing prices drive this innovation to the leading edge, one of the wealthiest prospective production locations has been absolutely ignored by financiers 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 adequate foreign financial investment can be obtained. Unlike Brazil, where biofuel is produced 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 shores 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 manufacturer of gas.
Farther to the east, in Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, geographical seclusion and reasonably little hydrocarbon resources relative to their Western Caspian next-door neighbors have actually largely inhibited their ability to money in on increasing worldwide energy needs already. Mountainous Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan stay largely dependent for their electrical requirements on their Soviet-era hydroelectric facilities, but their increased requirement to generate winter electrical energy has caused autumnal and winter water discharges, in turn seriously affecting the agriculture of their western downstream neighbors Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan.
What these three downstream nations do have nevertheless is a Soviet-era tradition of farming 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 ended up being a significant producer of wheat. Based on my conversations with Central Asian federal government officials, given the thirsty needs of cotton monoculture, foreign proposals to diversify agrarian production towards biofuel would have excellent appeal in Astana, Ashgabat and Tashkent and to a lesser degree Astana for those sturdy financiers going to bet on the future, particularly as a plant native to the area has already proven itself in trials.
Known in the West as incorrect flax, wild flax, linseed dodder, German sesame and Siberian oilseed, camelina is attracting increased clinical interest for its oleaginous qualities, with numerous European and American business already examining how to produce it in industrial amounts for biofuel. In January Japan Airlines carried out a historic test flight using camelina-based bio-jet fuel, ending up being 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 functional efficiency capability and possible commercial practicality.
As an alternative energy source, camelina has much to recommend 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 benefit of camelina is its tolerance of poorer, less fertile conditions. An acre sown 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 consist of 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 an especially appealing concentration of omega-3 fatty acids that make it a particularly fine animals feed prospect that is just now getting recognition in the U.S. and Canada. Camelina is quick growing, produces its own natural herbicide (allelopathy) and contends well against weeds when an even crop is developed. According to Britain's Bangor University's Centre for Alternative Land Use, "Camelina might 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 barely a new crop on the scene: historical evidence indicates it has actually been cultivated in Europe for at least three millennia to produce both grease and animal fodder.
Field trials of production in Montana, presently the center of U.S. camelina research study, showed a large range of results of 330-1,700 pounds of seed per acre, with oil material differing in between 29 and 40%. Optimal seeding rates have been identified to be in the 6-8 lb per acre range, as the seeds' little size of 400,000 seeds per lb can produce problems in germination to accomplish an ideal plant density of around 9 plants per sq. ft.
Camelina's potential could enable Uzbekistan to begin breaking out of its most dolorous tradition, 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 government identified that Central Asia would become its cotton plantation to feed Moscow's growing fabric market. The process was sped up 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 ended up being self-dependent in cotton; five decades later it had 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 heaps annually, which generates more than $1 billion while constituting approximately 60 percent of the nation's hard cash income.
Beginning in the mid-1960s the Soviet government's regulations for Central Asian cotton production mostly 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 primary rivers, the Amu Darya and Syr Darya, into ineffective watering canals, resulting in the dramatic shrinkage of the rivers' final location, the Aral Sea. The Aral, once the world's fourth-largest inland sea with a location of 26,000 square miles, has actually shrunk to one-quarter its original size in one of the 20th century's worst ecological catastrophes.
And now, the dollars and cents. Dr. Bill Schillinger at Washington State University recently described camelina's company 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 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 out on is the foreign financial investment. U.S. investors have the cash and access to the knowledge of America's land grant universities. What is particular is that biofuel's market share will grow gradually; less certain is who will profit of developing it as a feasible issue 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 show Asian interest, American investors have the academic know-how, if they want to follow the Silk Road into developing a brand-new market. Certainly anything that lessens water usage and pesticides, diversifies crop production and improves the lot of their agrarian population will receive most mindful factor to consider from Central Asia's federal governments, and farming and grease processing plants are not only more affordable than pipelines, they can be built more rapidly.
And jatropha's biofuel potential? Another story for another time.
