The recent discoveries of a International Energy Administration whistleblower that the IEA might have misshaped key oil forecasts under extreme U.S. pressure is, if real (and whistleblowers hardly ever come forward to advance their professions), a slow-burning thermonuclear explosion on future international 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 discovering new reserves have the possible to throw federal governments' long-term preparation into mayhem.

Whatever the reality, increasing long term worldwide demands seem certain to outstrip production in the next decade, particularly offered the high and rising expenses of establishing brand-new super-fields such as Kazakhstan's offshore Kashagan and Brazil's southern Atlantic Jupiter and Carioca fields, which will require billions in financial investments before their first barrels of oil are produced.

In such a situation, additives and alternatives such as biofuels will play an ever-increasing role by extending beleaguered production quotas. As market forces and rising costs drive this technology to the leading edge, one of the richest possible production locations has actually been absolutely ignored by financiers already - Central Asia. Formerly the USSR's cotton "plantation," the region is poised to become a major gamer in the production of biofuels if adequate foreign financial investment can be acquired. Unlike Brazil, where biofuel is made mainly from sugarcane, or the United States, where it is primarily 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 coasts of the Caspian, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan have actually seen their economies boom because of record-high energy costs, while Turkmenistan is waiting in the wings as a rising producer of natural gas.

Farther to the east, in Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, geographical isolation and fairly scant hydrocarbon resources relative to their Western Caspian neighbors have actually mostly prevented their capability to capitalize rising international energy demands up to now. Mountainous Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan stay mainly dependent for their electrical requirements on their Soviet-era hydroelectric infrastructure, however their heightened requirement to generate winter electricity has caused autumnal and winter season water discharges, in turn badly affecting the agriculture of their western downstream neighbors Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan.

What these 3 downstream countries do have however is a Soviet-era tradition of agricultural production, which in Uzbekistan's and Turkmenistan case was mostly directed towards cotton production, while Kazakhstan, starting in the 1950s with Khrushchev's "Virgin Lands" programs, has ended up being a significant producer of wheat. Based on my discussions with Central Asian government officials, given the thirsty demands of cotton monoculture, foreign propositions to diversify agrarian production towards biofuel would have fantastic appeal in Astana, Ashgabat and Tashkent and to a lower extent Astana for those sturdy financiers 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 drawing in increased scientific interest for its oleaginous qualities, with a number of European and American companies already investigating how to produce it in business quantities for biofuel. In January Japan Airlines carried out a historical test flight using camelina-based bio-jet fuel, becoming the first Asian provider to experiment with flying on fuel derived from sustainable feedstocks during a one-hour presentation flight from Tokyo's Haneda Airport. The test was the culmination of a 12-month assessment of camelina's functional efficiency capability and potential commercial 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 immune to spring freezing, requires 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 perk of camelina is its tolerance of poorer, less fertile conditions. An acre sown 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 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 particles can be used for livestock silage. Camelina silage has a particularly appealing concentration of omega-3 fatty acids that make it a particularly great animals feed candidate that is recently acquiring acknowledgment in the U.S. and Canada. Camelina is fast growing, produces its own natural herbicide (allelopathy) and contends well versus 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 indigenous to both Europe and Central Asia and barely a brand-new crop on the scene: archaeological proof shows it has actually been cultivated in Europe for at least three millennia to produce both grease and animal fodder.

Field trials of production in Montana, presently the center of U.S. camelina research, showed a wide variety of results of 330-1,700 pounds of seed per acre, with oil material varying between 29 and 40%. Optimal seeding rates have actually been identified to be in the 6-8 lb per acre variety, as the seeds' small size of 400,000 seeds per lb can develop problems in germination to achieve an optimum plant density of around 9 plants per sq. ft.

Camelina's capacity could enable Uzbekistan to begin breaking out of its most dolorous legacy, the imposition of a cotton monoculture that has deformed the country's efforts at agrarian reform given that attaining independence in 1991. Beginning in the late 19th century, the Russian federal government figured out that Central Asia would become its cotton plantation to feed Moscow's growing textile market. The process was sped up under the Soviets. While Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan were likewise 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 become self-dependent in cotton; five decades later on it had ended up being 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 options Tashkent stays wedded to cotton, producing about 3.6 million loads each year, which generates more than $1 billion while making up approximately 60 percent of the country's tough currency income.

Beginning in the mid-1960s the Soviet government's regulations for Central Asian cotton production mainly bankrupted the region's scarcest resource, water. Cotton uses 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 main rivers, the Amu Darya and Syr Darya, into inefficient irrigation canals, resulting in the significant shrinking of the rivers' final 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 original size in one of the 20th century's worst ecological catastrophes.

And now, the dollars and cents. Dr. Bill Schillinger at Washington State University just recently explained 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 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 proficiency of America's land grant universities. What is particular is that biofuel's market share will grow in time; less specific is who will enjoy the advantages of establishing it as a practical 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 indicate Asian interest, American financiers have the scholastic proficiency, if they are prepared to follow the Silk Road into establishing a new market. Certainly anything that decreases water use and pesticides, diversifies crop production and enhances the great deal of their agrarian population will receive most careful consideration from Central Asia's federal governments, and farming and grease processing plants are not only more affordable than pipelines, they can be developed quicker.

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