The recent discoveries of a International Energy Administration whistleblower that the IEA may have misshaped key oil forecasts under extreme U.S. pressure is, if true (and whistleblowers hardly ever come forward to advance their professions), a slow-burning atomic explosion on future global oil production. The Bush administration's actions in pushing the IEA to underplay the rate of decrease from existing oil fields while overplaying the possibilities of discovering brand-new reserves have the possible to toss federal governments' long-term planning into turmoil.

Whatever the reality, rising long term international needs appear certain to outstrip production in the next years, specifically given the high and rising expenses of developing new super-fields such as Kazakhstan's offshore Kashagan and Brazil's southern Atlantic Jupiter and Carioca fields, which will need billions in investments before their first barrels of oil are produced.

In such a situation, ingredients and substitutes 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 forefront, among the wealthiest prospective production areas has been completely neglected by financiers already - Central Asia. Formerly the USSR's cotton "plantation," the region is poised to become a significant player in the production of biofuels if sufficient foreign investment can be procured. Unlike Brazil, where biofuel is produced mostly 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 previous Soviet Caucasian and Central Asian republics, those clustered around the shores of the Caspian, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan have actually seen their economies boom due to the fact that of record-high energy prices, while Turkmenistan is waiting in the wings as a rising producer of gas.

Farther to the east, in Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, geographical seclusion and reasonably little hydrocarbon resources relative to their Western Caspian neighbors have largely inhibited their ability to money in on rising international energy needs up to now. Mountainous Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan stay mainly dependent for their electrical needs on their Soviet-era hydroelectric infrastructure, however their increased need to produce winter season electrical power has actually led to autumnal and winter season water discharges, in turn significantly impacting the farming of their western downstream next-door neighbors Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan.

What these 3 downstream nations do have however is a Soviet-era legacy of agricultural production, which in Uzbekistan's and Turkmenistan case was largely 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 government authorities, provided the thirsty demands of cotton monoculture, foreign proposals to diversify agrarian production towards biofuel would have fantastic appeal in Astana, Ashgabat and Tashkent and to a lower degree Astana for those durable financiers ready to wager on the future, especially as a plant native to the area has actually currently 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 numerous European and American business already examining how to produce it in industrial quantities for biofuel. In January Japan Airlines undertook a historic test flight utilizing camelina-based bio-jet fuel, ending up being the very first Asian provider to try out flying on fuel stemmed from sustainable feedstocks throughout a one-hour demonstration flight from Tokyo's Haneda Airport. The test was the conclusion of a 12-month assessment of camelina's operational performance ability and prospective business viability.

As an alternative energy source, camelina has much to recommend it. It has a high oil material 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 specific 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 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 used for livestock silage. Camelina silage has an especially attractive concentration of omega-3 fatty acids that make it an especially fine animals feed candidate that is recently getting recognition 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 developed. 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 household, is native to both Europe and Central Asia and hardly a new crop on the scene: historical evidence shows it has actually been cultivated in Europe for at least 3 centuries to produce both veggie oil and animal fodder.

Field trials of production in Montana, presently the center of U.S. camelina research, revealed a wide range of results of 330-1,700 lbs of seed per acre, with oil content differing in between 29 and 40%. Optimal seeding rates have been figured out to be in the 6-8 lb per acre variety, as the seeds' little size of 400,000 seeds per pound can develop issues in germination to achieve an optimum plant density of around 9 plants per sq. ft.

Camelina's potential might enable Uzbekistan to begin breaking out of its most dolorous tradition, the imposition of a cotton monoculture that has the nation's attempts at agrarian reform considering that attaining 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 textile industry. The process was sped up under the Soviets. While Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan were also purchased by Moscow to sow cotton, Uzbekistan in particular was singled out to produce "white gold."

By the end of the 1930s the Soviet Union had actually become self-sufficient in cotton; five years later on it had become 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 remains wedded to cotton, producing about 3.6 million lots every year, which brings in more than $1 billion while constituting roughly 60 percent of the nation's hard cash earnings.

Beginning in the mid-1960s the Soviet federal government's instructions 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 organizers to divert ever-increasing volumes of water from the area's two main rivers, the Amu Darya and Syr Darya, into inefficient irrigation canals, leading to the dramatic shrinking of the rivers' last destination, the Aral Sea. The Aral, as soon as the world's fourth-largest inland sea with an area of 26,000 square miles, has shrunk to one-quarter its original size in one of the 20th century's worst ecological disasters.

And now, the dollars and cents. Dr. Bill Schillinger at Washington State University 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 watering facilities and a modest wage scale in comparison to America or Europe - all that's missing out on is the foreign financial 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 with time; less particular is who will gain the advantages of developing it as a feasible concern 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 show Asian interest, American investors have the academic competence, if they want to follow the Silk Road into establishing a brand-new market. Certainly anything that decreases water usage and pesticides, diversifies crop production and improves the great deal of their agrarian population will receive most mindful factor to consider from Central Asia's governments, and farming and grease processing plants are not only much cheaper than pipelines, they can be developed quicker.

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