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The current discoveries of a International Energy Administration whistleblower that the IEA might 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 pressuring the IEA to underplay the rate of decrease from existing oil fields while overplaying the chances of discovering brand-new reserves have the potential to toss governments' long-lasting planning into chaos.

Whatever the truth, rising long term international needs appear particular to overtake production in the next decade, particularly offered 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, ingredients and substitutes such as biofuels will play an ever-increasing role by stretching beleaguered production quotas. As market forces and rising prices drive this technology to the forefront, one of the wealthiest prospective production areas has actually been totally neglected by investors already - Central Asia. Formerly the USSR's cotton "plantation," the area is poised to become a major player in the production of biofuels if enough foreign financial investment can be obtained. Unlike Brazil, where biofuel is made mostly 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 because of record-high energy prices, while Turkmenistan is waiting in the wings as a rising manufacturer of gas.

Farther to the east, in Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, geographical isolation and relatively little hydrocarbon resources relative to their Western Caspian next-door neighbors have mostly inhibited their capability to capitalize increasing global energy needs already. Mountainous Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan remain largely dependent for their electrical needs on their Soviet-era hydroelectric facilities, but their heightened requirement to generate winter electricity has actually led to autumnal and winter season water discharges, in turn severely affecting the agriculture of their western downstream neighbors Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan.

What these three downstream countries do have nevertheless is a Soviet-era legacy of agricultural 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 become a significant producer of wheat. Based upon my conversations with Central Asian government officials, given the thirsty needs of cotton monoculture, foreign proposals to diversify agrarian production towards biofuel would have fantastic appeal in Astana, Ashgabat and Tashkent and to a lower degree Astana for those durable financiers happy to bet on the future, specifically as a plant native to the region has actually already 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 clinical interest for its oleaginous qualities, with a number of European and American business already investigating how to produce it in commercial quantities for biofuel. In January Japan Airlines carried out a historical test flight using camelina-based bio-jet fuel, ending up being the first Asian provider to experiment with flying on fuel obtained from sustainable feedstocks during a one-hour demonstration flight from Tokyo's Haneda Airport. The test was the conclusion of a 12-month evaluation of camelina's functional efficiency capability and prospective commercial viability.

As an alternative energy source, camelina has much to suggest 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 major wheat exporter. Another bonus 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 ton (1000 kg) of camelina will contain 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 utilized for livestock silage. Camelina silage has an especially appealing concentration of omega-3 fats that make it a particularly great livestock feed prospect that is recently 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 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 native to both Europe and Central Asia and barely a brand-new crop on the scene: historical proof suggests it has been cultivated in Europe for at least three millennia to produce both vegetable oil and animal fodder.

Field trials of production in Montana, currently the center of U.S. camelina research study, revealed a wide range of results of 330-1,700 pounds of seed per acre, with oil material 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' small size of 400,000 seeds per lb can develop problems in germination to attain an optimal plant density of around 9 plants per sq. ft.

Camelina's potential might enable Uzbekistan to start breaking out of its most dolorous tradition, the imposition of a cotton monoculture that has deformed the nation's attempts at agrarian reform considering that 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 industry. The process 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; 5 years later it had 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 might to diversify, in the lack of alternatives Tashkent remains wedded to cotton, producing about 3.6 million loads every year, which brings in more than $1 billion while making up approximately 60 percent of the country's hard cash earnings.

Beginning in the mid-1960s the Soviet federal government's regulations for Central Asian cotton production mostly bankrupted the region's scarcest resource, water. Cotton uses about 3.5 acre feet of water per acre of plants, leading Soviet coordinators to divert ever-increasing volumes of water from the region's 2 main rivers, the Amu Darya and Syr Darya, into inefficient irrigation canals, resulting in the dramatic shrinking of the rivers' last location, the Aral Sea. The Aral, as soon as the world's fourth-largest inland sea with a location of 26,000 square miles, has shrunk 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 just recently described camelina's business design 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 comparison to America or Europe - all that's missing out on is the foreign financial investment. U.S. financiers 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 in time; less certain is who will gain the advantages of developing it as a in Central Asia.

If the current past is anything to pass it is unlikely to be American and European investors, fixated as they are on Caspian oil and gas.

But while the Japanese flight experiments indicate Asian interest, American investors have the scholastic proficiency, if they want to follow the Silk Road into developing a brand-new market. Certainly anything that minimizes water use and pesticides, diversifies crop production and enhances the lot of their agrarian population will get most cautious factor to consider from Central Asia's governments, and farming and grease processing plants are not just more affordable than pipelines, they can be built faster.

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