The recent discoveries of a International Energy Administration whistleblower that the IEA may have misshaped crucial oil forecasts under extreme U.S. pressure is, if real (and whistleblowers seldom come forward to advance their careers), a slow-burning thermonuclear surge 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 chances of finding brand-new reserves have the potential to throw governments' long-term preparation into mayhem.

Whatever the reality, increasing long term worldwide demands appear particular to outstrip production in the next decade, specifically given the high and rising costs of developing brand-new super-fields such as Kazakhstan's overseas Kashagan and Brazil's southern Atlantic Jupiter and Carioca fields, which will need billions in investments before their very first barrels of oil are produced.

In such a circumstance, ingredients and substitutes such as biofuels will play an ever-increasing role by stretching beleaguered production quotas. As market forces and rising rates drive this technology to the forefront, one of the richest possible production locations has been completely neglected by investors up to now - Central Asia. Formerly the USSR's cotton "plantation," the area is poised to become a major player in the production of biofuels if sufficient foreign investment can be acquired. Unlike Brazil, where biofuel is produced 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 seen their economies boom due to the fact that of record-high energy rates, while Turkmenistan is waiting in the wings as an increasing producer of 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 increasing worldwide energy demands already. Mountainous Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan stay largely reliant for their electrical requirements on their Soviet-era hydroelectric infrastructure, however their increased requirement to produce winter season electrical energy has actually led to autumnal and winter water discharges, in turn seriously impacting the agriculture of their western downstream neighbors Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan.

What these 3 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 ended up being a major producer of wheat. Based on my conversations with Central Asian federal government officials, offered the thirsty demands 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 durable financiers going to bank on the future, especially as a plant indigenous to the area 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 bring in increased clinical interest for its oleaginous qualities, with several European and American business currently investigating how to produce it in commercial amounts 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 stemmed from sustainable feedstocks throughout a one-hour demonstration flight from Tokyo's Haneda Airport. The test was the culmination of a 12-month assessment of camelina's operational efficiency capability and possible business 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 unsusceptible to spring freezing, requires less fertilizer and herbicides, and can be used as a rotation crop with wheat, which would make it of specific interest in Kazakhstan, now Central Asia's significant wheat exporter. Another bonus offer 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 ton (1000 kg) of camelina will include 350 kg of oil, of which pushing can draw out 250 kg. Nothing in camelina production is wasted as after processing, the plant's debris can be used for animals silage. Camelina silage has a particularly attractive concentration of omega-3 fatty acids that make it an especially great livestock feed prospect that is just now gaining recognition 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 appropriate for bio-diesel production, due to its lower requirements for nitrogen fertilizer than oilseed rape."

Camelina, a branch of the mustard family, is indigenous to both Europe and Central Asia and hardly a new crop on the scene: historical proof indicates it has been cultivated in Europe for at least three centuries to produce both grease and animal fodder.

Field trials of production in Montana, currently the center of U.S. camelina research, revealed 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 actually been figured out 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 attain an optimal plant density of around 9 plants per sq. ft.

Camelina's potential could enable Uzbekistan to start breaking out of its most dolorous legacy, the imposition of a cotton monoculture that has deformed the country's attempts at agrarian reform since 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 market. The process was accelerated under the Soviets. While Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan were also 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; five years later it had actually ended up being a significant 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 absence of options 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 tough currency earnings.

Beginning in the mid-1960s the Soviet government's directives 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 planners to divert ever-increasing volumes of water from the region's 2 primary rivers, the Amu Darya and Syr Darya, into ineffective watering canals, leading to the dramatic 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 shrunk 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 explained camelina's service 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 garner $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. investors have the cash and access to the know-how of America's land grant universities. What is specific is that biofuel's market share will grow gradually; less specific is who will profit of establishing it as a practical concern in Central Asia.

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

But while the Japanese flight experiments indicate Asian interest, American investors have the academic competence, if they are prepared to follow the Silk Road into developing a brand-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 cautious factor to consider from Central Asia's governments, and farming and veggie oil processing plants are not just more affordable than pipelines, they can be developed faster.

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