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The current discoveries of a International Energy Administration whistleblower that the IEA might have distorted crucial oil projections under extreme U.S. pressure is, if real (and whistleblowers hardly ever come forward to advance their professions), a slow-burning atomic explosion on future worldwide oil production. The Bush administration's actions in pressing the IEA to the rate of decrease from existing oil fields while overplaying the chances of finding new reserves have the possible to toss governments' long-lasting planning into mayhem.

Whatever the reality, increasing long term global needs seem specific to outstrip production in the next years, especially offered the high and rising expenses of developing brand-new super-fields such as Kazakhstan's offshore Kashagan and Brazil's southern Atlantic Jupiter and Carioca fields, which will need billions in financial investments before their first barrels of oil are produced.

In such a circumstance, ingredients and substitutes such as biofuels will play an ever-increasing function by extending beleaguered production quotas. As market forces and rising prices drive this technology to the forefront, one of the wealthiest possible production locations has actually been absolutely ignored by financiers up to now - Central Asia. Formerly the USSR's cotton "plantation," the area is poised to end up being a major gamer in the production of biofuels if adequate foreign financial investment can be acquired. Unlike Brazil, where biofuel is manufactured largely from sugarcane, or the United States, where it is mostly distilled from corn, Central Asia's ace resource is a native plant, Camelina sativa.

Of the former Soviet Caucasian and Central Asian republics, those clustered around the shores of the Caspian, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan have actually seen their economies boom since of record-high energy costs, while Turkmenistan is waiting in the wings as an increasing manufacturer of gas.

Farther to the east, in Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, geographical seclusion and fairly scant hydrocarbon resources relative to their Western Caspian neighbors have actually mainly inhibited their capability to money in on increasing international energy needs already. Mountainous Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan stay largely dependent for their electrical requirements on their Soviet-era hydroelectric facilities, however their increased need to generate winter season electrical power has resulted in autumnal and winter water discharges, in turn significantly impacting the agriculture of their western downstream neighbors Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan.

What these 3 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 become a significant producer of wheat. Based on my conversations with Central Asian government officials, given the thirsty needs of cotton monoculture, foreign propositions to diversify agrarian production towards biofuel would have excellent appeal in Astana, Ashgabat and Tashkent and to a lower level Astana for those sturdy investors prepared to bet on the future, specifically as a plant indigenous to the region has actually already shown 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 several European and American companies currently investigating how to produce it in industrial quantities for biofuel. In January Japan Airlines undertook a historic test flight using camelina-based bio-jet fuel, ending up being the very first Asian carrier to try out flying on fuel derived 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 performance ability and possible commercial practicality.

As an alternative energy source, camelina has much to recommend 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 unsusceptible to spring freezing, requires less fertilizer and herbicides, and can be utilized as a rotation crop with wheat, which would make it of particular interest in Kazakhstan, now Central Asia's major wheat exporter. Another bonus offer 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 pressing 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 an especially attractive concentration of omega-3 fats that make it an especially 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 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 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 native to both Europe and Central Asia and hardly a brand-new crop on the scene: archaeological evidence suggests it has actually been cultivated in Europe for at least 3 centuries to produce both veggie oil and animal fodder.

Field trials of production in Montana, presently the center of U.S. camelina research study, showed a vast array of outcomes of 330-1,700 pounds 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 variety, as the seeds' little size of 400,000 seeds per lb can develop issues in germination to accomplish an optimum plant density of around 9 plants per sq. ft.

Camelina's capacity might allow Uzbekistan to begin breaking out of its most dolorous legacy, the imposition of a cotton monoculture that has warped the country's efforts at agrarian reform because achieving self-reliance in 1991. Beginning in the late 19th century, the Russian federal government determined that Central Asia would become its cotton plantation to feed Moscow's growing fabric 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 particular was singled out to produce "white gold."

By the end of the 1930s the Soviet Union had actually ended up being self-dependent in cotton; 5 decades later 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 lack of alternatives Tashkent stays wedded to cotton, producing about 3.6 million lots yearly, which generates more than $1 billion while constituting around 60 percent of the country's hard currency income.

Beginning in the mid-1960s the Soviet federal government's directives 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 planners to divert ever-increasing volumes of water from the region's two main rivers, the Amu Darya and Syr Darya, into inefficient watering canals, leading to the significant shrinking of the rivers' final destination, the Aral Sea. The Aral, when the world's fourth-largest inland sea with a location of 26,000 square miles, has actually diminished to one-quarter its original size in one of the 20th century's worst eco-friendly catastrophes.

And now, the dollars and cents. Dr. Bill Schillinger at Washington State University recently explained camelina's business 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 irrigation 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. investors 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 in time; less particular is who will gain the benefits of establishing it as a viable issue in Central Asia.

If the current past is anything to go by it is not likely to be American and European investors, focused as they are on Caspian oil and gas.

But while the Japanese flight experiments show Asian interest, American financiers have the scholastic competence, if they want to follow the Silk Road into establishing a new market. Certainly anything that lessens 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 veggie oil processing plants are not just much cheaper than pipelines, they can be constructed more quickly.

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