The recent discoveries of a International Energy Administration whistleblower that the IEA might have distorted crucial oil projections under extreme U.S. pressure is, if true (and whistleblowers rarely 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 decline from existing oil fields while overplaying the possibilities of finding new reserves have the prospective to throw governments' long-term planning into mayhem.

Whatever the reality, increasing long term global needs appear certain to overtake production in the next years, specifically 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 need billions in financial investments before their first barrels of oil are produced.

In such a scenario, additives and replacements 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 leading edge, one of the wealthiest prospective 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 significant player in the production of biofuels if sufficient foreign investment can be procured. Unlike Brazil, where biofuel is made mainly 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 Caucasian and Central Asian republics, those clustered around the shores of the Caspian, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan have actually seen their economies boom due to the fact that of record-high energy prices, 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 prevented their capability to capitalize rising international energy needs already. Mountainous Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan stay mainly dependent for their electrical needs on their Soviet-era hydroelectric infrastructure, but their heightened requirement to create winter season electricity has led to autumnal and winter season water discharges, in turn significantly affecting the agriculture of their western downstream neighbors Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan.

What these three downstream nations do have however is a Soviet-era legacy of farming production, which in Uzbekistan's and Turkmenistan case was mostly directed towards cotton production, while Kazakhstan, beginning in the 1950s with Khrushchev's "Virgin Lands" programs, has actually become a major manufacturer of wheat. Based on my conversations with Central Asian government officials, provided the thirsty needs of cotton monoculture, foreign propositions to diversify agrarian production towards biofuel would have great appeal in Astana, Ashgabat and Tashkent and to a lower degree Astana for those sturdy financiers ready to bank on the future, specifically as a plant native to the region has actually already proven itself in trials.

Known in the West as false flax, wild flax, linseed dodder, German sesame and Siberian oilseed, camelina is bring in increased clinical interest for its oleaginous qualities, with a number of European and American companies already investigating how to produce it in commercial amounts for biofuel. In January Japan Airlines undertook a historical test flight using camelina-based bio-jet fuel, becoming the very 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 culmination of a 12-month evaluation of camelina's functional performance ability and potential industrial practicality.

As an alternative energy source, camelina has much to advise 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, needs 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 offer 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 include 350 kg of oil, of which pressing can extract 250 kg. Nothing in camelina production is lost as after processing, the plant's debris can be used for livestock silage. Camelina silage has an especially attractive concentration of omega-3 fats that make it a particularly fine animals feed candidate that is recently gaining recognition in the U.S. and Canada. Camelina is fast growing, produces its own natural herbicide (allelopathy) and competes well against weeds when an even crop is established. According to Britain's Bangor University's Centre for Alternative Land Use, "Camelina could be a perfect low-input crop suitable 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 indicates it has been cultivated in Europe for at least 3 millennia to produce both vegetable oil and animal fodder.

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

Camelina's capacity could enable Uzbekistan to start breaking out of its most dolorous tradition, the imposition of a cotton monoculture that has deformed the nation's attempts at agrarian reform since achieving self-reliance in 1991. Beginning in the late 19th century, the Russian federal government determined that Central Asia would become its cotton plantation to feed Moscow's growing textile industry. The process was accelerated under the Soviets. While Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan were likewise bought 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-dependent in cotton; five decades 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 absence of alternatives Tashkent stays wedded to cotton, producing about 3.6 million heaps each year, which generates more than $1 billion while making up approximately 60 percent of the nation's hard cash earnings.

Beginning in the mid-1960s the Soviet federal government's regulations for Central Asian cotton production mostly bankrupted the region's scarcest resource, water. Cotton utilizes 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 inefficient watering canals, leading to the significant shrinking of the rivers' final destination, the Aral Sea. The Aral, when the world's fourth-largest inland sea with a location of 26,000 square miles, has shrunk to one-quarter its original size in among the 20th century's worst environmental catastrophes.

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 bring in $224 per acre; 28-bushel white wheat at $8.23 per bushel would amass $230."

Central Asia has the land, the farms, the irrigation facilities 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 in time; less specific is who will profit of establishing it as a practical issue in Central Asia.

If the current 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 show Asian interest, American investors have the academic proficiency, if they want to follow the Silk Road into developing a brand-new market. Certainly anything that lessens water usage and pesticides, diversifies crop production and enhances the great deal of their agrarian population will receive most cautious consideration from Central Asia's governments, and farming and grease processing plants are not just much cheaper than pipelines, they can be developed quicker.

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