The current discoveries of a International Energy Administration whistleblower that the IEA might have misshaped crucial oil forecasts under extreme U.S. pressure is, if real (and whistleblowers seldom 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 underplay the rate of decrease from existing oil fields while overplaying the chances of finding brand-new reserves have the prospective to toss federal governments' long-term planning into turmoil.

Whatever the reality, rising long term international needs seem particular to overtake production in the next years, specifically provided the high and increasing expenses of establishing 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 situation, additives and substitutes such as biofuels will play an ever-increasing function by stretching beleaguered production quotas. As market forces and increasing costs drive this innovation to the forefront, among the wealthiest prospective production areas has been totally neglected by investors already - Central Asia. Formerly the USSR's cotton "plantation," the region is poised to end up being a major gamer in the production of biofuels if enough foreign investment can be acquired. Unlike Brazil, where biofuel is made mainly 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 shores 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 natural gas.

Farther to the east, in Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, geographical seclusion and reasonably little hydrocarbon resources relative to their Western Caspian neighbors have mostly hindered their ability to cash in on increasing global energy needs up to now. Mountainous Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan stay mainly reliant for their electrical needs on their Soviet-era hydroelectric facilities, however their increased requirement to produce winter season electricity has 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 nations do have nevertheless is a Soviet-era tradition of agricultural production, which in Uzbekistan's and Turkmenistan case was mainly directed towards cotton production, while Kazakhstan, beginning in the 1950s with Khrushchev's "Virgin Lands" programs, has actually become a significant producer of wheat. Based on my discussions with Central Asian government authorities, 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 level Astana for those sturdy investors going to bank on the future, especially as a plant native to the region has actually currently proven itself in trials.

Known in the West as incorrect flax, wild flax, linseed dodder, German sesame and Siberian oilseed, camelina is attracting increased clinical interest for its oleaginous qualities, with several European and American business currently investigating how to produce it in industrial quantities for biofuel. In January Japan Airlines carried out a historical test flight utilizing camelina-based bio-jet fuel, becoming the first Asian provider to experiment with flying on fuel obtained 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 functional efficiency capability and prospective industrial viability.

As an alternative energy source, camelina has much to recommend it. It has a high oil content 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 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 heap (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 debris can be utilized for livestock silage. Camelina silage has a particularly appealing concentration of omega-3 fats that make it a particularly fine livestock feed prospect that is recently acquiring 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 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 evidence shows it has been cultivated in Europe for at least 3 centuries to produce both grease and animal fodder.

Field trials of production in Montana, currently the center of U.S. camelina research, showed a vast array of outcomes of 330-1,700 lbs of seed per acre, with oil material varying in between 29 and 40%. Optimal seeding rates have been determined to be in the 6-8 pound per acre range, as the seeds' small size of 400,000 seeds per lb can develop issues in germination to attain an optimal plant density of around 9 plants per sq. ft.

Camelina's potential might allow Uzbekistan to start breaking out of its most dolorous tradition, the imposition of a cotton monoculture that has deformed the country's efforts at agrarian reform considering that accomplishing 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 fabric market. The procedure was sped up under the Soviets. While Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan were likewise ordered 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 ended up being self-dependent 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 stays wedded to cotton, producing about 3.6 million heaps yearly, which generates more than $1 billion while making up roughly 60 percent of the country's tough currency earnings.

Beginning in the mid-1960s the Soviet government's regulations for Central Asian cotton production mostly bankrupted the region'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 2 primary rivers, the Amu Darya and Syr Darya, into ineffective irrigation canals, leading to the significant shrinkage 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 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 described 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 out on is the foreign investment. U.S. investors 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 gradually; less specific is who will gain the advantages 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 investors, focused as they are on Caspian oil and gas.

But while the Japanese flight experiments show Asian interest, American investors have the academic know-how, if they want to follow the Silk Road into establishing a brand-new market. Certainly anything that minimizes water usage and pesticides, diversifies crop production and improves the lot of their agrarian population will get most mindful consideration from Central Asia's governments, and farming and grease processing plants are not just more affordable than pipelines, they can be built more quickly.

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