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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 careers), a slow-burning atomic surge on future global oil production. The Bush administration's actions in pressuring the IEA to underplay the rate of decrease from existing oil fields while overplaying the opportunities of finding new reserves have the prospective to toss federal governments' long-term preparation into mayhem.

Whatever the reality, increasing long term worldwide needs appear certain to overtake production in the next decade, particularly given the high and increasing 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 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 prices drive this innovation to the leading edge, one of the richest prospective production locations has actually been completely ignored by investors up to now - Central Asia. Formerly the USSR's cotton "plantation," the area is poised to become a major gamer in the production of biofuels if enough foreign investment can be obtained. Unlike Brazil, where biofuel is produced largely 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 seen their economies boom since of record-high energy costs, 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 relatively little hydrocarbon resources relative to their Western Caspian neighbors have mainly inhibited their ability to capitalize increasing global energy needs already. Mountainous Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan remain mostly dependent for their electrical needs on their Soviet-era hydroelectric facilities, but their heightened need to create winter season electrical power has actually resulted in autumnal and winter season water discharges, in turn significantly impacting the farming of their western downstream neighbors Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan.

What these three downstream countries do have however is a Soviet-era tradition 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 actually become a major manufacturer of wheat. Based on my conversations with Central Asian federal government officials, provided 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 lower level Astana for those sturdy investors ready to bank on the future, especially as a plant native to the area has currently proven itself in trials.

Known in the West as false flax, wild flax, linseed dodder, German sesame and Siberian oilseed, camelina is drawing in increased clinical interest for its oleaginous qualities, with a number of European and American business currently examining how to produce it in commercial amounts for biofuel. In January Japan Airlines carried out a historical test flight using camelina-based bio-jet fuel, becoming the very first Asian carrier to try out flying on fuel originated from sustainable feedstocks throughout a one-hour presentation flight from Tokyo's Haneda Airport. The test was the culmination of a 12-month examination of camelina's functional efficiency capability and potential business 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 unsusceptible to spring freezing, needs 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 significant wheat exporter. Another bonus offer 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 load (1000 kg) of camelina will consist of 350 kg of oil, of which pushing can extract 250 kg. Nothing in camelina production is wasted as after processing, the plant's debris can be used for livestock silage. Camelina silage has a particularly attractive concentration of omega-3 fats that make it a particularly great animals feed prospect that is recently gaining acknowledgment in the U.S. and Canada. Camelina is fast 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 suitable 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: archaeological proof indicates it has actually been cultivated in Europe for a minimum of 3 millennia to produce both veggie oil and animal fodder.

Field trials of production in Montana, currently the center of U.S. camelina research study, revealed a wide variety of results of 330-1,700 pounds of seed per acre, with oil content varying in between 29 and 40%. Optimal seeding rates have been determined to be in the 6-8 pound per acre variety, as the seeds' little size of 400,000 seeds per lb can develop issues in germination to achieve an ideal plant density of around 9 plants per sq. ft.

Camelina's capacity could permit Uzbekistan to start breaking out of its most dolorous legacy, the imposition of a cotton monoculture that has deformed the country's attempts at agrarian reform considering that attaining 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 market. The was sped up under the Soviets. While Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan were likewise ordered by Moscow to sow 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-sufficient in cotton; 5 decades later on 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 absence of options Tashkent remains wedded to cotton, producing about 3.6 million heaps yearly, which generates more than $1 billion while making up approximately 60 percent of the nation's tough currency earnings.

Beginning in the mid-1960s the Soviet 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 coordinators to divert ever-increasing volumes of water from the region's two primary rivers, the Amu Darya and Syr Darya, into ineffective irrigation canals, leading to the remarkable shrinkage of the rivers' last destination, the Aral Sea. The Aral, once the world's fourth-largest inland sea with a location of 26,000 square miles, has diminished to one-quarter its original size in among the 20th century's worst ecological disasters.

And now, the dollars and cents. Dr. Bill Schillinger at Washington State University just recently explained camelina's organization design 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 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. financiers have the cash and access to the proficiency 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 benefits of establishing it as a viable concern in Central Asia.

If the recent past is anything to go by 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 financiers have the scholastic expertise, if they are willing to follow the Silk Road into establishing a new market. Certainly anything that decreases water usage and pesticides, diversifies crop production and enhances the lot of their agrarian population will get most mindful consideration from Central Asia's governments, and farming and veggie oil processing plants are not only much less expensive than pipelines, they can be constructed more rapidly.

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