The current discoveries of a International Energy Administration whistleblower that the IEA may have distorted essential oil projections under extreme U.S. pressure is, if true (and whistleblowers rarely come forward to advance their careers), a slow-burning thermonuclear explosion on future global oil production. The Bush administration's actions in pressing the IEA to underplay the rate of decline from existing oil fields while overplaying the chances of finding brand-new reserves have the prospective to throw governments' long-term preparation into chaos.

Whatever the reality, increasing long term worldwide demands appear specific to outstrip production in the next decade, especially offered the high and increasing expenses 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 financial investments before their very 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 prices drive this technology to the forefront, among the wealthiest potential production locations has actually been totally overlooked by investors up to now - Central Asia. Formerly the USSR's cotton "plantation," the region is poised to become a major player in the production of biofuels if sufficient foreign financial investment can be procured. Unlike Brazil, where biofuel is manufactured largely from sugarcane, or the United States, where it is mostly distilled from corn, Central Asia's ace resource is an indigenous plant, Camelina sativa.

Of the former Soviet 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 costs, 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 fairly scant hydrocarbon resources relative to their Western Caspian next-door neighbors have actually largely inhibited their capability to cash in on rising worldwide energy needs already. Mountainous Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan stay mostly dependent for their electrical requirements on their Soviet-era hydroelectric infrastructure, however their heightened need to generate winter electrical energy has led to autumnal and winter season water discharges, in turn severely affecting the farming of their western downstream neighbors Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan.

What these three downstream countries do have however is a Soviet-era tradition of agricultural production, which in Uzbekistan's and Turkmenistan case was mainly 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 conversations with Central Asian federal government authorities, offered the thirsty demands of cotton monoculture, foreign proposals to diversify agrarian production towards biofuel would have excellent appeal in Astana, Ashgabat and Tashkent and to a lower degree Astana for those sturdy financiers ready to bet on the future, particularly as a plant native to the region has currently shown itself in trials.

Known in the West as false flax, wild flax, linseed dodder, German sesame and Siberian oilseed, camelina is attracting increased scientific interest for its oleaginous qualities, with numerous European and American business currently investigating how to produce it in commercial amounts for biofuel. In January Japan Airlines carried out a historical test flight using camelina-based bio-jet fuel, ending up being the first Asian carrier to explore flying on fuel originated from sustainable feedstocks throughout a one-hour demonstration flight from Tokyo's Haneda Airport. The test was the culmination of a 12-month examination of camelina's operational efficiency capability and prospective industrial viability.

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 unsusceptible to spring freezing, requires less fertilizer and herbicides, and can be used as a rotation crop with wheat, which would make it of particular interest in Kazakhstan, now Central Asia's major wheat exporter. Another reward of camelina is its tolerance of poorer, less fertile conditions. An acre planted 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 heap (1000 kg) of camelina will consist of 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 livestock silage. Camelina silage has an especially appealing concentration of omega-3 fats that make it a particularly great livestock feed prospect that is simply now getting acknowledgment in the U.S. and Canada. Camelina is fast 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 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 indigenous to both Europe and Central Asia and barely a brand-new crop on the scene: archaeological evidence shows it has actually been cultivated in Europe for a minimum of three centuries to produce both veggie oil and animal fodder.

Field trials of production in Montana, presently the center of U.S. camelina research, showed a vast array of outcomes of 330-1,700 lbs of seed per acre, with oil material varying between 29 and 40%. Optimal seeding rates have actually been identified to be in the 6-8 lb per acre variety, as the seeds' little size of 400,000 seeds per pound can develop problems in germination to achieve an ideal 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 given that attaining independence 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 industry. The process was accelerated under the Soviets. While Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan were also purchased by Moscow to plant cotton, Uzbekistan in specific was singled out to produce "white gold."

By the end of the 1930s the Soviet Union had ended up being self-sufficient in cotton; five decades later it had 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 may to diversify, in the lack of alternatives Tashkent remains wedded to cotton, producing about 3.6 million loads each year, which brings in more than $1 billion while making up roughly 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 region'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 area's two main rivers, the Amu Darya and Syr Darya, into ineffective irrigation canals, leading to the remarkable 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 actually diminished to one-quarter its initial size in one of the 20th century's worst eco-friendly disasters.

And now, the dollars and cents. Dr. Bill Schillinger at Washington State University just recently explained camelina's company model 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 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 cash and access to the competence of America's land grant universities. What is particular is that biofuel's market share will grow over time; less particular is who will gain the advantages of establishing it as a practical issue in Central Asia.

If the recent past is anything to pass it is unlikely 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 scholastic 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 cautious consideration from Central Asia's governments, and farming and vegetable oil processing plants are not just more affordable than pipelines, they can be built quicker.

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