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The current revelations of a International Energy Administration whistleblower that the IEA may have misshaped key oil projections under extreme U.S. pressure is, if real (and whistleblowers seldom come forward to advance their professions), a slow-burning atomic surge 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 opportunities of discovering brand-new reserves have the possible to throw governments' long-term planning into chaos.


Whatever the truth, rising long term global needs appear certain to outstrip production in the next decade, particularly given the high and rising costs 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 very first barrels of oil are produced.


In such a scenario, additives and replacements such as biofuels will play an ever-increasing role by extending beleaguered production quotas. As market forces and rising costs drive this innovation to the leading edge, one of the richest possible production areas has been completely overlooked by investors up to now - Central Asia. Formerly the USSR's cotton "plantation," the region is poised to end up being a significant gamer in the production of biofuels if enough 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 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 seen their economies boom since of record-high energy rates, while Turkmenistan is waiting in the wings as an increasing producer of gas.


Farther to the east, in Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, geographical seclusion and reasonably scant hydrocarbon resources relative to their Western Caspian neighbors have mainly prevented their ability to money in on rising worldwide energy demands up to now. Mountainous Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan stay mainly dependent for their electrical requirements on their Soviet-era hydroelectric infrastructure, however their increased requirement to create winter electricity has actually led to autumnal and winter season water discharges, in turn badly impacting the farming of their western downstream 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, beginning in the 1950s with Khrushchev's "Virgin Lands" programs, has ended up being a major manufacturer of wheat. Based upon my discussions with Central Asian government authorities, given the thirsty needs of cotton monoculture, foreign proposals to diversify agrarian production towards biofuel would have great appeal in Astana, Ashgabat and Tashkent and to a lower extent Astana for those sturdy financiers ready to bank on the future, specifically as a plant indigenous 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 clinical interest for its oleaginous qualities, with a number of European and American business currently examining how to produce it in industrial quantities for biofuel. In January Japan Airlines carried out a historic test flight using camelina-based bio-jet fuel, ending up being the first Asian provider to try out flying on fuel derived from sustainable feedstocks during a one-hour presentation flight from Tokyo's Haneda Airport. The test was the conclusion of a 12-month assessment of camelina's operational efficiency ability and prospective commercial viability.


As an alternative energy source, camelina has much to advise it. It has a high oil content 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 specific interest in Kazakhstan, now Central Asia's major wheat exporter. Another bonus of camelina is its tolerance of poorer, less fertile conditions. An acre planted 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 lot (1000 kg) of camelina will contain 350 kg of oil, of which pushing can extract 250 kg. Nothing in camelina production is lost as after processing, the plant's particles can be used for animals silage. Camelina silage has an especially attractive concentration of omega-3 fats that make it a particularly great livestock feed candidate that is simply now acquiring recognition in the U.S. and Canada. Camelina is fast growing, produces its own natural herbicide (allelopathy) and contends well against weeds when an even crop is established. 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 indigenous to both Europe and Central Asia and barely a brand-new crop on the scene: historical proof indicates it has actually been cultivated in Europe for at least three centuries to produce both vegetable oil and animal fodder.


Field trials of production in Montana, presently the center of U.S. camelina research, revealed a large range of results of 330-1,700 pounds of seed per acre, with oil material varying in between 29 and 40%. Optimal seeding rates have 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 produce issues in germination to accomplish an ideal 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 distorted the country's attempts at agrarian reform since achieving independence in 1991. Beginning in the late 19th century, the Russian federal government identified that Central Asia would become its cotton plantation to feed Moscow's growing textile market. The process was accelerated under the Soviets. While Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan were also 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 actually become self-dependent in cotton; five years later on it had actually become a significant 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 may 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 constituting 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 region's two primary rivers, the Amu Darya and Syr Darya, into inefficient watering canals, leading to the remarkable shrinking of the rivers' last location, the Aral Sea. The Aral, when the world's fourth-largest inland sea with an area of 26,000 square miles, has diminished to one-quarter its initial 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 explained 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 gather $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 is the foreign financial investment. U.S. investors have the money and access to the knowledge of America's land grant universities. What is specific is that biofuel's market share will grow over time; less certain is who will profit of establishing it as a practical concern in Central Asia.


If the recent past is anything to pass it is not likely 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 academic expertise, if they are prepared to follow the Silk Road into establishing a brand-new market. Certainly anything that reduces water use and pesticides, diversifies crop production and enhances the lot of their agrarian population will get most careful factor to consider from Central Asia's governments, and farming and grease processing plants are not only more affordable than pipelines, they can be built quicker.


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