The recent revelations of a International Energy Administration whistleblower that the IEA might have misshaped essential oil forecasts under intense U.S. pressure is, if real (and whistleblowers rarely come forward to advance their careers), a slow-burning atomic explosion on future international oil production. The Bush administration's actions in pressing the IEA to underplay the rate of decrease from existing oil fields while overplaying the possibilities of finding brand-new reserves have the potential to throw governments' long-term planning into mayhem.

Whatever the reality, rising long term international needs seem certain to outstrip production in the next years, especially provided 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, ingredients and alternatives such as biofuels will play an ever-increasing function by extending beleaguered production quotas. As market forces and rising rates drive this technology to the forefront, one of the richest possible production locations has been totally ignored by financiers already - Central Asia. Formerly the USSR's cotton "plantation," the region is poised to end up being a major player in the production of biofuels if enough foreign financial investment can be acquired. Unlike Brazil, where biofuel is made mostly 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 shores of the Caspian, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan have actually seen their economies boom because of record-high energy prices, while Turkmenistan is waiting in the wings as an increasing producer of gas.

Farther to the east, in Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, geographical isolation and reasonably scant hydrocarbon resources relative to their Western Caspian neighbors have largely hindered their capability to capitalize rising worldwide energy needs already. Mountainous Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan stay largely reliant for their electrical requirements on their Soviet-era hydroelectric facilities, but their increased requirement to generate winter season electrical power has resulted in autumnal and winter water discharges, in turn badly affecting the farming of their western downstream neighbors Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan.

What these 3 downstream countries do have however is a Soviet-era tradition of farming 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 ended up being a significant producer of wheat. Based upon my conversations with Central Asian government officials, given the thirsty needs of cotton monoculture, foreign propositions to diversify agrarian production towards biofuel would have fantastic appeal in Astana, Ashgabat and Tashkent and to a lower degree Astana for those sturdy investors happy to bank on the future, specifically as a plant native to the region has actually currently 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 oleaginous qualities, with a number of European and American business already examining how to produce it in business quantities for biofuel. In January Japan Airlines carried out a historic test flight using camelina-based bio-jet fuel, ending up being the very first Asian provider to experiment with flying on fuel originated from sustainable feedstocks throughout a one-hour presentation flight from Tokyo's Haneda Airport. The test was the conclusion of a 12-month evaluation of camelina's functional performance ability and possible industrial viability.

As an alternative energy source, camelina has much to suggest 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 unsusceptible 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 perk 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 ton (1000 kg) of camelina will contain 350 kg of oil, of which pushing can draw out 250 kg. Nothing in camelina production is wasted as after processing, the plant's debris can be utilized for animals silage. Camelina silage has a particularly appealing concentration of omega-3 fatty acids that make it an especially fine livestock feed prospect that is simply now gaining acknowledgment in the U.S. and Canada. Camelina is quick 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 an ideal 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 family, is indigenous to both Europe and Central Asia and hardly a brand-new crop on the scene: historical evidence suggests it has actually been cultivated in Europe for at least three millennia to produce both grease and animal fodder.

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

Camelina's potential could allow Uzbekistan to start breaking out of its most dolorous tradition, the imposition of a cotton monoculture that has deformed the country's efforts at agrarian reform because achieving self-reliance in 1991. Beginning in the late 19th century, the Russian federal government figured out that Central Asia would become its cotton plantation to feed Moscow's growing fabric market. The procedure was accelerated under the Soviets. While Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan were likewise ordered by Moscow to sow cotton, Uzbekistan in specific was singled out to produce "white gold."

By the end of the 1930s the Soviet Union had actually become self-sufficient in cotton; five decades later on it had actually 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 alternatives Tashkent stays wedded to cotton, producing about 3.6 million tons annually, which brings in more than $1 billion while constituting roughly 60 percent of the country's hard cash 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 utilizes about 3.5 acre feet of water per acre of plants, leading Soviet organizers to divert ever-increasing volumes of water from the area's two primary rivers, the Amu Darya and Syr Darya, into ineffective watering canals, resulting in the dramatic shrinking of the rivers' last location, the Aral Sea. The Aral, when the world's fourth-largest inland sea with an area of 26,000 square miles, has diminished 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 company 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 garner $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 out on is the foreign financial investment. U.S. investors have the money and access to the know-how of America's land grant universities. What is specific is that biofuel's market share will grow over time; less certain 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 unlikely to be American and European financiers, focused as they are on Caspian oil and gas.

But while the Japanese flight experiments indicate Asian interest, American financiers have the academic knowledge, if they are ready to follow the Silk Road into developing a new market. Certainly anything that reduces water use and pesticides, diversifies crop production and improves the lot of their agrarian population will receive most careful consideration from Central Asia's federal governments, and farming and veggie oil processing plants are not just much less expensive than pipelines, they can be developed faster.

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