The current revelations of a International Energy Administration whistleblower that the IEA might have misshaped crucial oil forecasts under extreme U.S. pressure is, if real (and whistleblowers hardly ever step forward to advance their professions), a slow-burning atomic explosion on future global 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 prospective to toss federal governments' long-term preparation into chaos.

Whatever the truth, rising long term global demands seem particular to outstrip production in the next decade, particularly given the high and rising costs of developing new super-fields such as Kazakhstan's offshore Kashagan and Brazil's southern Atlantic Jupiter and Carioca fields, which will require billions in investments before their first barrels of oil are produced.

In such a circumstance, additives and substitutes such as biofuels will play an ever-increasing function by stretching beleaguered production quotas. As market forces and increasing rates drive this technology to the forefront, one of the richest potential production areas has actually been absolutely neglected by investors up to now - 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 adequate foreign investment can be acquired. Unlike Brazil, where biofuel is made 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 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 producer of gas.

Farther to the east, in Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, geographical seclusion and relatively little hydrocarbon resources relative to their Western Caspian next-door neighbors have actually mainly hindered their capability to capitalize increasing global energy demands up to now. Mountainous Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan stay mostly reliant for their electrical requirements on their Soviet-era hydroelectric infrastructure, but their increased need to create winter season electrical energy has led to autumnal and winter season water discharges, in turn severely affecting the agriculture of their western downstream neighbors Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan.

What these three downstream nations 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, beginning 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 government authorities, offered 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 extent Astana for those sturdy financiers happy to bank on the future, especially as a plant native to the region has currently proven itself in trials.

Known in the West as false flax, wild flax, linseed dodder, German sesame and Siberian oilseed, camelina is drawing in increased scientific interest for its oleaginous qualities, with a number of European and American companies currently examining how to produce it in industrial quantities for biofuel. In January Japan Airlines carried out a historical test flight using camelina-based bio-jet fuel, becoming the very first Asian carrier to experiment with flying on fuel stemmed from sustainable feedstocks during a one-hour presentation flight from Tokyo's Haneda Airport. The test was the conclusion of a 12-month assessment of camelina's functional performance ability and prospective commercial viability.

As an alternative energy source, camelina has much to suggest it. It has a high oil material 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 specific 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 approximately 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 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 particles can be utilized for animals silage. Camelina silage has an especially attractive concentration of omega-3 fats that make it a particularly fine animals feed candidate that is simply now gaining 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 could 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 household, is native to both Europe and Central Asia and hardly a new crop on the scene: historical proof indicates it has actually been cultivated in Europe for a minimum of three centuries to produce both grease and animal fodder.

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

Camelina's capacity might enable Uzbekistan to begin breaking out of its most dolorous legacy, the imposition of a cotton monoculture that has warped the nation's efforts at agrarian reform given that accomplishing independence 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 industry. 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 become self-sufficient in cotton; five years later on it had ended up being a significant 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 options Tashkent remains wedded to cotton, producing about 3.6 million lots every year, which brings in more than $1 billion while constituting approximately 60 percent of the country's hard cash income.

Beginning in the mid-1960s the Soviet government's instructions for Central Asian cotton production mainly bankrupted the area'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 region's two primary rivers, the Amu Darya and Syr Darya, into inefficient watering canals, resulting in the significant shrinking of the rivers' last destination, the Aral Sea. The Aral, as soon as the world's fourth-largest inland sea with a location of 26,000 square miles, has shrunk 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 service 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 irrigation infrastructure and a modest wage scale in comparison to America or Europe - all that's missing out on is the foreign 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 gradually; less certain is who will profit of establishing it as a feasible issue in Central Asia.

If the recent past is anything to pass it is not likely to be American and European financiers, fixated as they are on Caspian oil and gas.

But while the Japanese flight experiments show Asian interest, American investors have the scholastic know-how, if they want to follow the Silk Road into establishing a brand-new market. Certainly anything that lessens water usage and pesticides, diversifies crop production and improves the great deal of their agrarian population will receive most mindful consideration from Central Asia's federal governments, and farming and veggie oil processing plants are not only much less expensive than pipelines, they can be developed faster.

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