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The current revelations of a International Energy Administration whistleblower that the IEA may have distorted crucial oil forecasts under extreme U.S. pressure is, if real (and whistleblowers seldom come forward to advance their professions), a slow-burning atomic surge on future global oil production. The Bush administration's actions in pressing the IEA to underplay the rate of decline from existing oil fields while overplaying the possibilities of finding new reserves have the possible to throw federal governments' long-lasting planning into turmoil.

Whatever the reality, rising long term international demands appear particular to outstrip production in the next decade, especially provided the high and rising 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 investments before their first barrels of oil are produced.

In such a scenario, ingredients and alternatives such as biofuels will play an ever-increasing role by stretching beleaguered production quotas. As market forces and increasing costs drive this innovation to the forefront, among the richest possible production areas has been totally ignored by financiers already - Central Asia. Formerly the USSR's cotton "plantation," the region is poised to become a significant gamer in the production of biofuels if adequate 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 an indigenous plant, Camelina sativa.

Of the former Soviet Caucasian and Central Asian republics, those clustered around the coasts of the Caspian, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan have actually seen their economies boom due to the fact that of record-high energy rates, while Turkmenistan is waiting in the wings as an increasing producer of natural 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 mostly hindered their ability to capitalize increasing global energy needs up to now. Mountainous Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan remain mainly reliant for their electrical needs on their Soviet-era hydroelectric facilities, but their heightened requirement 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 3 downstream countries do have nevertheless is a Soviet-era legacy of farming 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 become a significant producer of wheat. Based upon my conversations with Central Asian federal government authorities, given 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 extent Astana for those hardy investors happy to wager on the future, specifically as a plant native to the area has actually currently proven itself in trials.

Known in the West as false flax, wild flax, linseed dodder, German sesame and Siberian oilseed, camelina is bring in increased scientific interest for its oleaginous qualities, with numerous European and American business currently investigating how to produce it in industrial amounts for biofuel. In January Japan Airlines carried out a historic test flight utilizing camelina-based bio-jet fuel, ending up being the very first Asian carrier to try out flying on fuel originated from sustainable feedstocks during 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 ability and prospective industrial viability.

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 unsusceptible 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 reward of camelina is its tolerance of poorer, less fertile conditions. An acre planted 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 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 used for livestock silage. Camelina silage has a particularly attractive concentration of omega-3 fats that make it an especially fine livestock feed prospect that is recently gaining 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 established. According to Britain's Bangor University's Centre for Alternative Land Use, "Camelina could 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 family, is indigenous to both Europe and Central Asia and barely a new crop on the scene: archaeological proof shows it has actually been cultivated in Europe for at least three centuries to produce both grease and animal fodder.

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

Camelina's potential could allow Uzbekistan to start breaking out of its most dolorous tradition, the imposition of a cotton monoculture that has warped the country's efforts at agrarian reform since 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 procedure was sped up under the Soviets. While Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan were also purchased 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 ended up being self-sufficient in cotton; five years later on it had become 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 absence of alternatives Tashkent remains wedded to cotton, producing about 3.6 million heaps each year, which generates more than $1 billion while constituting around 60 percent of the nation's hard cash income.

Beginning in the mid-1960s the Soviet government's regulations for Central Asian cotton production mainly bankrupted the area's scarcest resource, water. Cotton uses about 3.5 acre feet of water per acre of plants, leading Soviet organizers to divert ever-increasing volumes of water from the region's two primary rivers, the Amu Darya and Syr Darya, into inefficient irrigation canals, resulting in the remarkable shrinkage of the rivers' final destination, the Aral Sea. The Aral, once the world's fourth-largest inland sea with an area of 26,000 square miles, has actually diminished to one-quarter its initial size in one of the 20th century's worst environmental disasters.

And now, the dollars and cents. Dr. Bill Schillinger at Washington State University recently explained camelina's service 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 contrast to America or Europe - all that's missing is the investment. U.S. financiers have the money and access to the expertise of America's land grant universities. What is particular is that biofuel's market share will grow over time; less particular is who will gain the advantages of establishing it as a viable concern in Central Asia.

If the recent 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 scholastic expertise, if they are prepared to follow the Silk Road into developing a new market. Certainly anything that reduces water usage and pesticides, diversifies crop production and improves the great deal 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 much less expensive than pipelines, they can be built quicker.

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