The recent discoveries of a International Energy Administration whistleblower that the IEA may have misshaped crucial oil projections under extreme U.S. pressure is, if true (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 pushing the IEA to underplay the rate of decline from existing oil fields while overplaying the opportunities of discovering brand-new reserves have the potential to throw governments' long-lasting preparation into chaos.

Whatever the truth, rising long term international needs seem particular to outstrip production in the next years, specifically provided the high and rising expenses of establishing new super-fields such as Kazakhstan's overseas Kashagan and Brazil's southern Atlantic Jupiter and Carioca fields, which will require billions in financial investments before their very first barrels of oil are produced.

In such a situation, ingredients and alternatives such as biofuels will play an ever-increasing function by stretching beleaguered production quotas. As market forces and increasing rates drive this innovation to the forefront, one of the richest prospective production locations has actually been completely neglected by financiers already - Central Asia. Formerly the USSR's cotton "plantation," the area is poised to become a major gamer in the production of biofuels if adequate foreign investment can be obtained. Unlike Brazil, where biofuel is manufactured 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 previous Soviet Caucasian and Central Asian republics, those clustered around the shores 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 gas.

Farther to the east, in Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, geographical isolation and reasonably little hydrocarbon resources relative to their Western Caspian neighbors have actually mainly hindered their capability to money in on increasing global energy demands up to now. Mountainous Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan remain largely dependent for their electrical requirements on their Soviet-era hydroelectric infrastructure, however their heightened requirement to produce winter electricity has caused autumnal and winter season water discharges, in turn badly impacting the agriculture of their western downstream next-door neighbors Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan.

What these 3 downstream countries do have however 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 actually ended up being a major manufacturer of wheat. Based on my discussions with Central Asian federal government authorities, offered the thirsty needs of cotton monoculture, foreign proposals to diversify agrarian production towards biofuel would have excellent appeal in Astana, Ashgabat and Tashkent and to a lesser extent Astana for those sturdy investors willing to bank on the future, specifically as a plant indigenous to the area has already 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 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 undertook a historical test flight utilizing camelina-based bio-jet fuel, becoming the very first Asian provider to explore 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 operational performance ability and potential commercial practicality.

As an alternative energy source, camelina has much to advise 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, 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 of camelina is its tolerance of poorer, less fertile conditions. An acre sown with camelina can produce up to 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 particles can be used for livestock silage. Camelina silage has a particularly attractive concentration of omega-3 fats that make it an especially fine livestock feed candidate that is just now acquiring acknowledgment in the U.S. and Canada. Camelina is quick 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 a perfect 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 household, is native to both Europe and Central Asia and barely a new crop on the scene: historical evidence indicates it has been cultivated in Europe for a minimum of 3 millennia to produce both grease and animal fodder.

Field trials of production in Montana, presently the center of U.S. camelina research, revealed a broad variety of outcomes of 330-1,700 pounds of seed per acre, with oil material varying between 29 and 40%. Optimal seeding rates have actually been figured out to be in the 6-8 pound per acre range, as the seeds' little size of 400,000 seeds per lb can produce issues in germination to accomplish an ideal plant density of around 9 plants per sq. ft.

Camelina's capacity could allow Uzbekistan to start breaking out of its most dolorous tradition, the imposition of a cotton monoculture that has warped the nation's efforts at agrarian reform since attaining self-reliance 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 likewise bought 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 become self-dependent in cotton; five years later it had actually 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 may to diversify, in the absence of options Tashkent remains wedded to cotton, producing about 3.6 million tons yearly, which generates more than $1 billion while constituting approximately 60 percent of the nation's tough currency income.

Beginning in the mid-1960s the Soviet federal government's regulations for Central Asian cotton production largely bankrupted the region'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 2 main rivers, the Amu Darya and Syr Darya, into inefficient irrigation canals, resulting in the remarkable shrinkage of the rivers' final location, 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 among the 20th century's worst environmental disasters.

And now, the dollars and cents. Dr. Bill Schillinger at Washington State University just recently explained camelina's organization model 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 contrast to America or Europe - all that's missing is the foreign investment. U.S. financiers have the money and access to the proficiency of America's land grant universities. What is certain is that biofuel's market share will grow gradually; less specific is who will reap the benefits of establishing it as a feasible issue in Central Asia.

If the current past is anything to go by it is unlikely to be American and European financiers, focused as they are on Caspian oil and gas.

But while the Japanese flight experiments suggest Asian interest, American financiers have the academic knowledge, if they are prepared 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 great deal of their agrarian population will receive most mindful consideration from Central Asia's federal governments, and farming and veggie oil processing plants are not just more affordable than pipelines, they can be developed more rapidly.

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