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The recent revelations of a International Energy Administration whistleblower that the IEA may have misshaped crucial oil projections under extreme U.S. pressure is, if true (and whistleblowers rarely come forward to advance their professions), a slow-burning atomic explosion 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 possibilities of discovering new reserves have the prospective to throw governments' long-term planning into mayhem.

Whatever the truth, rising long term worldwide needs seem particular to overtake production in the next decade, particularly offered the high and rising 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 investments before their first barrels of oil are produced.

In such a scenario, ingredients and alternatives such as biofuels will play an ever-increasing function 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 absolutely ignored by financiers already - 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 enough foreign financial investment can be acquired. Unlike Brazil, where biofuel is produced mostly from sugarcane, or the United States, where it is mainly 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 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 a rising producer of gas.

Farther to the east, in Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, geographical isolation and fairly little hydrocarbon resources relative to their Western Caspian neighbors have actually mainly hindered their capability to capitalize rising international energy demands already. Mountainous Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan stay largely reliant for their electrical needs on their Soviet-era hydroelectric infrastructure, however their increased need to create winter electrical energy has actually resulted in autumnal and winter water discharges, in turn seriously 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 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 significant producer of wheat. Based on my discussions with Central Asian federal government authorities, given the thirsty demands of cotton monoculture, foreign proposals to diversify agrarian production towards biofuel would have great appeal in Astana, Ashgabat and Tashkent and to a lesser degree Astana for those sturdy financiers ready to bank on the future, particularly as a plant native to the region has actually currently 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 several European and American companies currently investigating how to produce it in business amounts for biofuel. In January Japan Airlines undertook a historic test flight using camelina-based bio-jet fuel, becoming the first Asian carrier to explore flying on fuel originated from sustainable feedstocks during a one-hour presentation flight from Tokyo's Haneda Airport. The test was the conclusion of a 12-month evaluation of camelina's operational efficiency capability and prospective 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 immune to spring freezing, requires less fertilizer and herbicides, and can be utilized as a rotation crop with wheat, which would make it of specific interest in Kazakhstan, now Central Asia's significant wheat exporter. Another benefit 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 load (1000 kg) of camelina will consist of 350 kg of oil, of which pressing can draw out 250 kg. Nothing in camelina production is squandered as after processing, the plant's particles can be used for livestock silage. Camelina silage has a particularly attractive concentration of omega-3 fats that make it a particularly great livestock feed candidate that is just now acquiring acknowledgment 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 might be an ideal 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 household, is native to both Europe and Central Asia and barely a brand-new crop on the scene: archaeological proof indicates it has been cultivated in Europe for at least 3 millennia to produce both grease and animal fodder.

Field trials of production in Montana, currently the center of U.S. camelina research, revealed a large range of results of 330-1,700 lbs of seed per acre, with oil content differing between 29 and 40%. Optimal seeding rates have actually been identified to be in the 6-8 pound per acre range, as the seeds' little size of 400,000 seeds per pound can create issues in germination to accomplish an ideal plant density of around 9 plants per sq. ft.

Camelina's potential might permit Uzbekistan to start breaking out of its most dolorous tradition, the imposition of a cotton monoculture that has deformed the country's attempts at agrarian reform considering that achieving independence 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 industry. The process was sped up under the Soviets. While Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan were likewise ordered by Moscow to sow cotton, Uzbekistan in particular was singled out to produce "white gold."

By the end of the 1930s the Soviet Union had become self-dependent in cotton; five decades later it had actually become 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 lack of options Tashkent remains wedded to cotton, producing about 3.6 million heaps each year, which generates more than $1 billion while making up roughly 60 percent of the country's hard cash income.

Beginning in the mid-1960s the Soviet federal government's instructions 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 organizers 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 shrinkage of the 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 shrunk to one-quarter its original size in among the 20th century's worst eco-friendly disasters.

And now, the dollars and cents. Dr. Bill Schillinger at Washington State University just recently explained camelina's organization 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 irrigation facilities and a modest wage scale in contrast to America or Europe - all that's missing out on is the foreign investment. U.S. investors have the money and access to the competence of America's land grant universities. What is specific is that biofuel's market share will grow over time; less certain is who will reap the advantages of establishing it as a feasible concern in Central Asia.

If the recent 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 financiers have the scholastic expertise, if they want to follow the Silk Road into establishing a new market. Certainly anything that lessens water usage and pesticides, diversifies crop production and improves the lot of their agrarian population will get most careful factor to consider from Central Asia's federal governments, and farming and vegetable oil processing plants are not only more affordable than pipelines, they can be developed faster.

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