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The current revelations of a International Energy Administration that the IEA may have distorted crucial oil projections under extreme U.S. pressure is, if true (and whistleblowers hardly ever come forward to advance their professions), a slow-burning thermonuclear surge 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 opportunities of discovering brand-new reserves have the prospective to toss federal governments' long-term planning into turmoil.

Whatever the truth, rising long term global demands seem certain to overtake production in the next years, specifically given the high and increasing costs of developing brand-new super-fields such as Kazakhstan's overseas Kashagan and Brazil's southern Atlantic Jupiter and Carioca fields, which will require billions in investments before their very first barrels of oil are produced.

In such a situation, ingredients and substitutes such as biofuels will play an ever-increasing role by extending beleaguered production quotas. As market forces and increasing costs drive this technology to the forefront, among the wealthiest possible production areas has actually been absolutely neglected by investors up to now - 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 adequate foreign financial 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 former 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 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 reasonably scant hydrocarbon resources relative to their Western Caspian neighbors have actually mostly inhibited their ability to money in on increasing worldwide energy needs already. Mountainous Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan stay largely dependent for their electrical needs on their Soviet-era hydroelectric infrastructure, but their increased requirement to produce winter season electricity has caused autumnal and winter water discharges, in turn seriously affecting the farming of their western downstream next-door neighbors Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan.

What these 3 downstream nations do have however is a Soviet-era tradition 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 producer of wheat. Based upon my discussions with Central Asian federal government authorities, given 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 lesser level Astana for those hardy investors going to bank on the future, especially as a plant native to the area has actually already shown 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 several European and American companies currently investigating how to produce it in business quantities for biofuel. In January Japan Airlines undertook a historical test flight using camelina-based bio-jet fuel, becoming the very first Asian provider 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 culmination of a 12-month examination of camelina's functional performance capability and possible commercial viability.

As an alternative energy source, camelina has much to recommend 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, 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 significant wheat exporter. Another perk 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 heap (1000 kg) of camelina will consist of 350 kg of oil, of which pressing can extract 250 kg. Nothing in camelina production is squandered as after processing, the plant's particles can be utilized for animals silage. Camelina silage has an especially appealing concentration of omega-3 fats that make it an especially fine animals feed candidate that is recently gaining acknowledgment in the U.S. and Canada. Camelina is fast growing, produces its own natural herbicide (allelopathy) and completes well versus 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 suitable for bio-diesel production, due to its lower requirements for nitrogen fertilizer than oilseed rape."

Camelina, a branch of the mustard family, is native to both Europe and Central Asia and barely a new crop on the scene: historical proof suggests it has actually been cultivated in Europe for a minimum of three 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 large range of results of 330-1,700 lbs of seed per acre, with oil material differing in between 29 and 40%. Optimal seeding rates have actually been identified to be in the 6-8 lb per acre range, as the seeds' small size of 400,000 seeds per pound can create issues in germination to achieve an optimal plant density of around 9 plants per sq. ft.

Camelina's potential might allow Uzbekistan to begin breaking out of its most dolorous legacy, the imposition of a cotton monoculture that has deformed the nation's efforts at agrarian reform since achieving independence in 1991. Beginning in the late 19th century, the Russian government identified that Central Asia would become its cotton plantation to feed Moscow's growing textile market. The procedure was sped up under the Soviets. While Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan were likewise purchased 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 ended up being self-dependent in cotton; 5 years later 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 may to diversify, in the absence of alternatives Tashkent remains wedded to cotton, producing about 3.6 million loads annually, which generates more than $1 billion while constituting roughly 60 percent of the country's hard cash earnings.

Beginning in the mid-1960s the Soviet government's directives for Central Asian cotton production mostly bankrupted the region's scarcest resource, water. Cotton uses 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 2 primary rivers, the Amu Darya and Syr Darya, into ineffective watering canals, resulting in the remarkable shrinkage of the rivers' final location, the Aral Sea. The Aral, when the world's fourth-largest inland sea with a location of 26,000 square miles, has actually 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 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 gather $230."

Central Asia has the land, the farms, the watering facilities 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 cash and access to the know-how of America's land grant universities. What is particular is that biofuel's market share will grow gradually; less certain is who will gain the advantages of developing it as a feasible issue in Central Asia.

If the current past is anything to go by it is not likely 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 scholastic know-how, if they want to follow the Silk Road into developing a new market. Certainly anything that reduces water use and pesticides, diversifies crop production and improves the great deal of their agrarian population will get most careful factor to consider from Central Asia's governments, and farming and vegetable oil processing plants are not only much less expensive than pipelines, they can be developed more quickly.

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