The current revelations of a International Energy Administration whistleblower that the IEA might have distorted essential oil projections under intense U.S. pressure is, if true (and whistleblowers seldom step forward to advance their professions), a slow-burning atomic explosion on future international oil production. The Bush administration's actions in pushing the IEA to underplay the rate of decrease from existing oil fields while overplaying the chances of discovering new reserves have the potential to throw governments' long-term preparation into turmoil.

Whatever the truth, increasing long term global demands appear particular to overtake production in the next decade, especially provided the high and increasing costs 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 financial investments before their first barrels of oil are produced.

In such a circumstance, additives and substitutes such as biofuels will play an ever-increasing role by stretching beleaguered production quotas. As market forces and rising rates drive this technology to the leading edge, among the richest potential production locations has been totally overlooked by financiers up to now - 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 adequate foreign financial investment can be acquired. Unlike Brazil, where biofuel is produced 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 previous Soviet Caucasian and Central Asian republics, those clustered around the coasts of the Caspian, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan have actually seen their economies boom since of record-high energy costs, while Turkmenistan is waiting in the wings as an increasing manufacturer of natural gas.

Farther to the east, in Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, geographical isolation and relatively little hydrocarbon resources relative to their Western Caspian neighbors have actually mainly inhibited their ability to capitalize rising international energy demands up to now. Mountainous Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan remain mainly dependent for their electrical requirements on their Soviet-era hydroelectric infrastructure, but their heightened need to create winter season electrical power has actually caused 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 countries do have nevertheless is a Soviet-era legacy 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 become a major producer of wheat. Based upon my conversations with Central Asian federal government authorities, given 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 lower degree Astana for those sturdy investors ready to bank on the future, especially as a plant indigenous to the area has already shown 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 qualities, with a number of European and American companies already investigating how to produce it in industrial quantities for biofuel. In January Japan Airlines undertook a historical 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 presentation flight from Tokyo's Haneda Airport. The test was the culmination of a 12-month assessment of camelina's operational efficiency capability and possible industrial viability.

As an alternative energy source, camelina has much to advise 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, 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 significant 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 lot (1000 kg) of camelina will consist of 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 animals silage. Camelina silage has a particularly attractive concentration of omega-3 fats that make it a particularly great 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 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 hardly a new crop on the scene: historical evidence shows it has been cultivated in Europe for a minimum of 3 millennia to produce both veggie oil and animal fodder.

Field trials of production in Montana, presently the center of U.S. camelina research, showed a wide variety of outcomes of 330-1,700 lbs of seed per acre, with oil material varying 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 lb can develop issues in germination to attain an ideal plant density of around 9 plants per sq. ft.

Camelina's potential could permit Uzbekistan to begin breaking out of its most dolorous tradition, the imposition of a cotton monoculture that has distorted the nation's attempts at agrarian reform since 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 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 major 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 lack of alternatives Tashkent remains wedded to cotton, producing about 3.6 million lots every year, which brings in more than $1 billion while making up roughly 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 planners to divert ever-increasing volumes of water from the region's 2 main rivers, the Amu Darya and Syr Darya, into ineffective irrigation canals, leading to the significant shrinking of the rivers' final location, the Aral Sea. The Aral, once the world's fourth-largest inland sea with a location of 26,000 square miles, has actually shrunk to one-quarter its initial size in among the 20th century's worst ecological catastrophes.

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 comparison to America or Europe - all that's missing is the foreign investment. U.S. investors have the money and access to the knowledge of America's land grant universities. What is specific is that biofuel's market share will grow gradually; less particular is who will enjoy the advantages of developing it as a viable issue in Central Asia.

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

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

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