The current revelations of a International Energy Administration whistleblower that the IEA might have distorted essential oil forecasts under intense U.S. pressure is, if real (and whistleblowers rarely step forward to advance their professions), a slow-burning thermonuclear explosion on future global oil production. The Bush administration's actions in pressuring the IEA to underplay the rate of decrease from existing oil fields while overplaying the possibilities of finding new reserves have the possible to toss governments' long-lasting planning into mayhem.

Whatever the truth, rising long term international needs appear certain to overtake production in the next decade, especially offered the high and rising costs of developing new super-fields such as Kazakhstan's overseas Kashagan and Brazil's southern Atlantic Jupiter and Carioca fields, which will require billions in investments before their first barrels of oil are produced.

In such a circumstance, ingredients and substitutes such as biofuels will play an ever-increasing function by stretching beleaguered production quotas. As market forces and rising rates drive this innovation to the forefront, one of the richest prospective production areas has been totally overlooked by investors already - Central Asia. Formerly the USSR's cotton "plantation," the region is poised to end up being a major player in the production of biofuels if sufficient foreign financial investment can be procured. Unlike Brazil, where biofuel is made 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 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 rates, while Turkmenistan is waiting in the wings as an increasing manufacturer 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 mostly prevented their capability to capitalize increasing global energy demands up to now. Mountainous Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan remain mainly reliant for their electrical requirements on their Soviet-era hydroelectric facilities, but their heightened need to generate winter electrical power 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 three downstream nations do have nevertheless is a Soviet-era legacy of agricultural production, which in Uzbekistan's and Turkmenistan case was mostly directed towards cotton production, while Kazakhstan, beginning in the 1950s with Khrushchev's "Virgin Lands" programs, has become a significant manufacturer of wheat. Based upon my discussions with Central Asian federal government authorities, given the thirsty demands of cotton monoculture, foreign propositions to diversify agrarian production towards biofuel would have great appeal in Astana, Ashgabat and Tashkent and to a lower level Astana for those hardy financiers happy to bank on the future, especially as a plant indigenous to the area has actually already shown 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 business currently 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 very first Asian carrier to experiment with flying on fuel derived from sustainable feedstocks during a one-hour demonstration flight from Tokyo's Haneda Airport. The test was the culmination of a 12-month evaluation of camelina's operational efficiency ability and possible industrial practicality.

As an alternative energy source, camelina has much to suggest it. It has a high oil content 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 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 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 include 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 animals silage. Camelina silage has an especially appealing concentration of omega-3 fats that make it a particularly fine livestock feed prospect that is simply now gaining acknowledgment in the U.S. and Canada. Camelina is quick growing, produces its own natural herbicide (allelopathy) and completes well versus weeds when an even crop is developed. According to Britain's Bangor University's Centre for Alternative Land Use, "Camelina could 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 family, is native to both Europe and Central Asia and hardly a brand-new crop on the scene: archaeological proof suggests it has actually been cultivated in Europe for a minimum of three centuries to produce both vegetable oil and animal fodder.

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

Camelina's potential might permit Uzbekistan to begin breaking out of its most dolorous legacy, the imposition of a cotton monoculture that has distorted the nation's attempts at agrarian reform because attaining independence 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 procedure was sped up under the Soviets. While Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan were also 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 actually ended up being self-dependent in cotton; five decades later it had 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 lack of options Tashkent stays wedded to cotton, producing about 3.6 million loads annually, which generates more than $1 billion while making up around 60 percent of the country's hard cash earnings.

Beginning in the mid-1960s the Soviet government's directives for Central Asian cotton production largely bankrupted the area's scarcest resource, water. Cotton utilizes about 3.5 acre feet of water per acre of plants, leading Soviet coordinators to divert ever-increasing volumes of water from the region's two primary rivers, the Amu Darya and Syr Darya, into inefficient irrigation canals, resulting in the dramatic shrinkage of the rivers' last location, the Aral Sea. The Aral, as soon as the world's fourth-largest inland sea with an area of 26,000 square miles, has actually diminished to one-quarter its initial 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 explained camelina's organization 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 watering infrastructure and a modest wage scale in contrast to America or Europe - all that's missing out on is the foreign financial investment. U.S. investors have the money and access to the know-how of America's land grant universities. What is particular is that biofuel's market share will grow with time; less specific is who will profit of establishing it as a viable concern in Central Asia.

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

But while the Japanese flight experiments indicate Asian interest, American investors have the academic expertise, if they are willing to follow the Silk Road into establishing a brand-new market. Certainly anything that reduces water usage and pesticides, diversifies crop production and enhances the great deal of their agrarian population will receive most careful consideration from Central Asia's governments, and farming and grease processing plants are not only more affordable than pipelines, they can be developed more rapidly.

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