The current discoveries of a International Energy Administration whistleblower that the IEA might have distorted key oil projections under intense U.S. pressure is, if real (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 pressuring 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 toss federal governments' long-term preparation into chaos.

Whatever the truth, increasing long term worldwide demands appear particular to outstrip production in the next years, especially given the high and increasing expenses of establishing brand-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 scenario, additives and substitutes such as biofuels will play an ever-increasing function by stretching beleaguered production quotas. As market forces and rising costs drive this innovation to the forefront, one of the richest prospective production locations has been completely overlooked by investors up to now - Central Asia. Formerly the USSR's cotton "plantation," the area is poised to end up being a significant gamer in the production of biofuels if adequate foreign financial investment can be acquired. 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 a native plant, Camelina sativa.

Of the previous Soviet Caucasian and Central Asian republics, those clustered around the coasts of the Caspian, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan have seen their economies boom because of record-high energy prices, while Turkmenistan is waiting in the wings as an increasing manufacturer of gas.

Farther to the east, in Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, geographical seclusion 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 remain mostly dependent for their electrical requirements on their Soviet-era hydroelectric facilities, but their increased need to create winter electrical power has resulted in autumnal and winter water discharges, in turn severely affecting the farming of their western downstream next-door neighbors Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan.

What these three downstream nations do have however is a Soviet-era legacy 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 significant producer of wheat. Based on my conversations with Central Asian government officials, offered the thirsty needs of cotton monoculture, foreign propositions to diversify agrarian production towards biofuel would have terrific appeal in Astana, Ashgabat and Tashkent and to a lesser level Astana for those durable financiers ready to wager on the future, specifically as a plant indigenous to the region has already proven itself in trials.

Known in the West as incorrect flax, wild flax, linseed dodder, German sesame and Siberian oilseed, camelina is drawing in increased clinical interest for its oleaginous qualities, with numerous European and American business already examining how to produce it in industrial amounts for biofuel. In January Japan Airlines undertook a historical test flight utilizing camelina-based bio-jet fuel, ending up being the very first Asian carrier to explore 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 functional efficiency capability and potential business viability.

As an alternative energy source, camelina has much to advise it. It has a high oil content low in hydrogenated 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 utilized as a rotation crop with wheat, which would make it of specific interest in Kazakhstan, now Central Asia's major wheat exporter. Another bonus 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 load (1000 kg) of camelina will contain 350 kg of oil, of which pressing can extract 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 fats that make it an especially great livestock feed candidate that is recently acquiring recognition 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 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 hardly a brand-new crop on the scene: archaeological proof suggests 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 large range of results of 330-1,700 lbs of seed per acre, with oil material differing in between 29 and 40%. Optimal seeding rates have been determined to be in the 6-8 pound per acre range, as the seeds' small size of 400,000 seeds per lb can create issues in germination to accomplish an optimum plant density of around 9 plants per sq. ft.

Camelina's capacity might allow Uzbekistan to begin breaking out of its most dolorous tradition, the imposition of a cotton monoculture that has deformed the nation's efforts at agrarian reform considering that attaining self-reliance in 1991. Beginning in the late 19th century, the Russian government figured out 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 ordered 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 become self-dependent in cotton; five decades later on 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 may to diversify, in the absence of alternatives Tashkent stays wedded to cotton, producing about 3.6 million tons every year, which brings in more than $1 billion while constituting approximately 60 percent of the nation's hard currency income.

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 coordinators to divert ever-increasing volumes of water from the region's 2 primary rivers, the Amu Darya and Syr Darya, into ineffective watering canals, resulting in the remarkable shrinking of the rivers' last destination, the Aral Sea. The Aral, once 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 environmental 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 gather $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 financial investment. U.S. financiers have the money and access to the competence of America's land grant universities. What is specific is that biofuel's market share will grow in time; less certain is who will reap the advantages of developing it as a viable concern in Central Asia.

If the recent past is anything to go by it is not likely to be American and European financiers, fixated as they are on Caspian oil and gas.

But while the Japanese flight experiments suggest Asian interest, American financiers have the scholastic competence, if they are ready to follow the Silk Road into establishing a brand-new market. Certainly anything that minimizes water use and pesticides, diversifies crop production and enhances the lot of their agrarian population will receive most careful factor to consider from Central Asia's governments, and farming and grease processing plants are not only much less expensive than pipelines, they can be built quicker.

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