The current discoveries of a International Energy Administration whistleblower that the IEA might have distorted essential oil forecasts under intense U.S. pressure is, if true (and whistleblowers rarely step forward to advance their careers), a slow-burning thermonuclear 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 new reserves have the potential to throw federal governments' long-term planning into chaos.

Whatever the reality, rising long term international demands seem specific to overtake production in the next years, particularly offered the high and increasing 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 financial investments before their first barrels of oil are produced.

In such a scenario, ingredients and replacements such as biofuels will play an ever-increasing function by stretching beleaguered production quotas. As market forces and rising prices drive this innovation to the forefront, one of the wealthiest potential production locations has actually been totally ignored by financiers already - Central Asia. Formerly the USSR's cotton "plantation," the area is poised to end up being a major player in the production of biofuels if enough foreign investment can be obtained. 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 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 since of record-high energy costs, while Turkmenistan is waiting in the wings as a rising manufacturer of natural gas.

Farther to the east, in Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, geographical isolation and relatively scant hydrocarbon resources relative to their Western Caspian next-door neighbors have actually mostly hindered their capability to money in on increasing international energy demands already. Mountainous Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan remain largely dependent for their electrical needs on their Soviet-era hydroelectric infrastructure, however their increased need to produce winter electricity has actually resulted in autumnal and winter season 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 tradition of farming 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 become a major producer of wheat. Based upon my discussions with Central Asian federal government authorities, provided the thirsty demands of cotton monoculture, foreign propositions to diversify agrarian production towards biofuel would have fantastic appeal in Astana, Ashgabat and Tashkent and to a lower level Astana for those sturdy investors going to wager on the future, specifically as a plant indigenous to the region has actually 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 several European and American companies 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, ending up being the first Asian carrier to experiment with flying on fuel originated 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 recommend 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 particular 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 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 lost as after processing, the plant's debris can be utilized for livestock silage. Camelina silage has an especially appealing concentration of omega-3 fats that make it an especially fine livestock feed candidate that is simply now acquiring acknowledgment in the U.S. and Canada. Camelina is quick growing, produces its own natural herbicide (allelopathy) and competes well versus weeds when an even crop is developed. According to Britain's Bangor University's Centre for Alternative Land Use, "Camelina might be an ideal low-input crop ideal 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 barely a brand-new crop on the scene: archaeological evidence suggests it has actually been cultivated in Europe for at least 3 millennia to produce both grease and animal fodder.

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

Camelina's capacity could enable Uzbekistan to begin breaking out of its most dolorous tradition, the imposition of a cotton monoculture that has distorted the country's efforts at agrarian reform because attaining self-reliance in 1991. Beginning in the late 19th century, the Russian government determined that Central Asia would become its cotton plantation to feed Moscow's growing fabric market. The process 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 become self-sufficient in cotton; 5 decades later it had actually ended up being 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 might to diversify, in the lack of alternatives Tashkent remains wedded to cotton, producing about 3.6 million heaps each year, which brings in more than $1 billion while making up around 60 percent of the country'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 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 two primary rivers, the Amu Darya and Syr Darya, into ineffective irrigation canals, leading to the dramatic shrinking of the rivers' final 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 diminished to one-quarter its initial size in one of the 20th century's worst environmental disasters.

And now, the dollars and cents. Dr. Bill Schillinger at Washington State University recently explained camelina's organization design to Capital Press as: "At 1,400 pounds per acre at 16 cents a pound, camelina would generate $224 per acre; 28-bushel white wheat at $8.23 per bushel would gather $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 is the foreign investment. U.S. financiers have the money and access to the knowledge of America's land grant universities. What is certain is that biofuel's market share will grow over time; less specific is who will gain the advantages of developing it as a practical issue 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 financiers have the academic proficiency, if they want to follow the Silk Road into developing a new market. Certainly anything that reduces water usage and pesticides, diversifies crop production and enhances the great deal of their will get most mindful consideration from Central Asia's federal governments, and farming and grease processing plants are not only much less expensive than pipelines, they can be built more quickly.

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