The recent discoveries of a International Energy Administration whistleblower that the IEA may have misshaped crucial oil forecasts under intense U.S. pressure is, if true (and whistleblowers hardly ever step forward to advance their professions), a slow-burning atomic explosion on future worldwide oil production. The Bush administration's actions in pressing 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 throw federal governments' long-term planning into chaos.

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

In such a circumstance, ingredients and replacements such as biofuels will play an ever-increasing role by extending beleaguered production quotas. As market forces and increasing costs drive this technology to the leading edge, among the richest prospective production areas has actually been totally overlooked by investors already - Central Asia. Formerly the USSR's cotton "plantation," the area is poised to end up being a significant 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 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 coasts of the Caspian, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan have seen their economies boom since of record-high energy costs, 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 reasonably scant hydrocarbon resources relative to their Western Caspian neighbors have mainly prevented their capability to cash in on rising worldwide energy demands up to now. Mountainous Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan remain mostly reliant for their electrical needs on their Soviet-era hydroelectric infrastructure, but their increased need to generate winter electrical power has caused autumnal and winter water discharges, in turn badly affecting the farming of their western downstream next-door neighbors Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan.

What these 3 downstream countries do have however is a Soviet-era legacy of agricultural production, which in Uzbekistan's and Turkmenistan case was mostly directed towards cotton production, while Kazakhstan, starting in the 1950s with Khrushchev's "Virgin Lands" programs, has actually ended up being a major manufacturer of wheat. Based on my discussions with Central Asian federal government authorities, given the thirsty needs of cotton monoculture, foreign proposals to diversify agrarian production towards biofuel would have terrific appeal in Astana, Ashgabat and Tashkent and to a lesser level Astana for those hardy investors happy to bank on the future, especially as a plant indigenous to the region 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 attracting increased clinical interest for its oleaginous qualities, with a number of European and American companies already examining how to produce it in commercial amounts for biofuel. In January Japan Airlines undertook a historic test flight using camelina-based bio-jet fuel, ending up being the very first Asian provider to explore 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 evaluation of camelina's functional efficiency ability and possible commercial practicality.

As an alternative energy source, camelina has much to advise 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, 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 load (1000 kg) of camelina will include 350 kg of oil, of which pushing can extract 250 kg. Nothing in camelina production is lost as after processing, the plant's debris can be utilized for animals 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 acquiring recognition in the U.S. and Canada. Camelina is fast 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 household, is native to both Europe and Central Asia and barely a brand-new crop on the scene: historical evidence shows it has been cultivated in Europe for a minimum of 3 centuries to produce both vegetable oil and animal fodder.

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

Camelina's capacity might permit Uzbekistan to start breaking out of its most dolorous tradition, the imposition of a cotton monoculture that has distorted the country's attempts at agrarian reform given that accomplishing independence 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 fabric industry. The process was accelerated under the Soviets. While Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan were also bought 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-dependent in cotton; 5 years later it had become a major exporter of cotton, producing more than one-fifth of the world's production, concentrated in Uzbekistan, which produced 70 percent of the Soviet Union's output.

Try as it may to diversify, in the absence of options Tashkent stays wedded to cotton, producing about 3.6 million loads yearly, which generates more than $1 billion while constituting around 60 percent of the nation's hard currency income.

Beginning in the mid-1960s the Soviet federal 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 coordinators to divert ever-increasing volumes of water from the region's two primary rivers, the Amu Darya and Syr Darya, into inefficient watering canals, leading to the remarkable shrinking of the rivers' final 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 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 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 facilities and a modest wage scale in contrast to America or Europe - all that's missing out on is the foreign investment. U.S. financiers have the cash and access to the proficiency of America's land grant universities. What is particular is that biofuel's market share will grow over time; less certain is who will gain 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 investors, fixated as they are on Caspian oil and gas.

But while the Japanese flight experiments suggest Asian interest, American investors have the academic proficiency, if they want to follow the Silk Road into establishing a new market. Certainly anything that minimizes water use and pesticides, diversifies crop production and improves the lot of their agrarian population will receive most careful factor to consider from Central Asia's governments, and farming and veggie oil processing plants are not only much cheaper than pipelines, they can be developed faster.

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