The recent discoveries of a International Energy Administration whistleblower that the IEA may have misshaped essential oil forecasts under intense U.S. pressure is, if real (and whistleblowers seldom come forward to advance their careers), 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 governments' long-term planning into chaos.

Whatever the truth, rising long term worldwide demands appear particular to overtake production in the next decade, particularly provided the high and increasing costs of establishing 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 very first barrels of oil are produced.

In such a circumstance, additives and replacements such as biofuels will play an ever-increasing function by extending beleaguered production quotas. As market forces and rising prices drive this innovation to the leading edge, among the richest potential production areas has been totally ignored by investors already - Central Asia. Formerly the USSR's cotton "plantation," the region is poised to end up being a significant gamer in the production of biofuels if enough foreign financial investment can be procured. 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 previous 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 rates, while Turkmenistan is waiting in the wings as a rising producer of natural gas.

Farther to the east, in Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, geographical seclusion and fairly scant hydrocarbon resources relative to their Western Caspian neighbors have mostly inhibited their ability to capitalize increasing worldwide energy demands up to now. Mountainous Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan stay mainly reliant for their electrical needs on their Soviet-era hydroelectric facilities, but their increased requirement to create winter season electrical power has actually led to autumnal and winter season water discharges, in turn seriously impacting the agriculture of their western downstream neighbors Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan.

What these three downstream nations do have however is a Soviet-era tradition of farming 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 manufacturer of wheat. Based on my conversations with Central Asian federal government authorities, offered the thirsty needs of cotton monoculture, foreign propositions to diversify agrarian production towards biofuel would have great appeal in Astana, Ashgabat and Tashkent and to a lesser level Astana for those durable financiers prepared to bet on the future, especially as a plant indigenous to the area has currently shown 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 several European and American business already investigating how to produce it in business amounts for biofuel. In January Japan Airlines carried out a historic test flight using camelina-based bio-jet fuel, ending up being the first Asian provider to experiment with flying on fuel originated from sustainable feedstocks during a one-hour demonstration flight from Tokyo's Haneda Airport. The test was the conclusion of a 12-month examination of camelina's functional performance ability and possible industrial viability.

As an alternative energy source, camelina has much to suggest 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 immune to spring freezing, needs 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 as much as 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 contain 350 kg of oil, of which pushing 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 an especially fine livestock feed candidate that is simply now gaining recognition in the U.S. and Canada. Camelina is fast growing, produces its own natural herbicide (allelopathy) and completes well versus weeds when an even crop is established. According to Britain's Bangor University's Centre for Alternative Land Use, "Camelina could 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 family, is native to both Europe and Central Asia and barely a brand-new crop on the scene: historical proof indicates it has actually been cultivated in Europe for a minimum of three millennia to produce both grease 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 between 29 and 40%. Optimal seeding rates have been out to be in the 6-8 lb per acre variety, as the seeds' small size of 400,000 seeds per lb can produce issues in germination to attain an ideal 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 deformed the nation's efforts at agrarian reform because accomplishing self-reliance 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 fabric industry. The process was accelerated under the Soviets. While Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan were likewise bought 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-sufficient in cotton; 5 decades later on it had actually ended up being 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 options Tashkent stays wedded to cotton, producing about 3.6 million lots annually, which generates more than $1 billion while constituting roughly 60 percent of the nation's hard cash earnings.

Beginning in the mid-1960s the Soviet government's instructions for Central Asian cotton production mainly bankrupted the area'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 two primary rivers, the Amu Darya and Syr Darya, into ineffective watering canals, resulting in the dramatic shrinking of the rivers' final destination, the Aral Sea. The Aral, once the world's fourth-largest inland sea with an area of 26,000 square miles, has actually shrunk 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 just recently described 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 garner $230."

Central Asia has the land, the farms, the watering infrastructure and a modest wage scale in comparison to America or Europe - all that's missing is the foreign investment. U.S. investors have the cash and access to the competence of America's land grant universities. What is certain is that biofuel's market share will grow over time; less specific is who will profit of developing it as a viable issue in Central Asia.

If the recent past is anything to pass it is unlikely 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 competence, if they want to follow the Silk Road into developing a new market. Certainly anything that lessens water use and pesticides, diversifies crop production and improves the great deal of their agrarian population will receive most cautious consideration from Central Asia's 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.