The current discoveries of a International Energy Administration whistleblower that the IEA may have distorted essential oil projections under intense U.S. pressure is, if true (and whistleblowers hardly ever come forward to advance their professions), a slow-burning thermonuclear surge on future international oil production. The Bush administration's actions in pressing the IEA to underplay the rate of decline from existing oil fields while overplaying the chances of finding brand-new reserves have the potential to toss federal governments' long-term preparation into mayhem.

Whatever the truth, rising long term worldwide needs seem particular to overtake production in the next years, specifically given the high and rising costs of establishing brand-new super-fields such as Kazakhstan's offshore Kashagan and Brazil's southern Atlantic Jupiter and Carioca fields, which will need billions in investments before their first barrels of oil are produced.

In such a situation, ingredients and substitutes such as biofuels will play an ever-increasing function by stretching beleaguered production quotas. As market forces and rising prices drive this technology to the leading edge, one of the wealthiest potential production locations has actually been absolutely overlooked by financiers up to now - Central Asia. Formerly the USSR's cotton "plantation," the area is poised to end up being a significant gamer in the production of biofuels if enough foreign investment can be obtained. Unlike Brazil, where biofuel is made mostly from sugarcane, or the United States, where it is mostly 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 coasts of the Caspian, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan have actually seen their economies boom due to the fact that of record-high energy costs, while Turkmenistan is waiting in the wings as a rising manufacturer of gas.

Farther to the east, in Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, geographical isolation and fairly little hydrocarbon resources relative to their Western Caspian next-door neighbors have mainly hindered their capability to money in on rising worldwide energy needs up to now. Mountainous Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan stay largely dependent for their electrical needs on their Soviet-era hydroelectric facilities, but their heightened need to generate winter season electricity has actually resulted in autumnal and winter water discharges, in turn badly impacting the agriculture of their western downstream neighbors Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan.

What these 3 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, starting in the 1950s with Khrushchev's "Virgin Lands" programs, has actually ended up being a significant producer of wheat. Based upon my discussions with Central Asian government authorities, offered the thirsty needs of cotton monoculture, foreign proposals to diversify agrarian production towards biofuel would have terrific appeal in Astana, Ashgabat and Tashkent and to a lesser degree Astana for those durable investors happy to bet on the future, especially as a plant native to the region has currently 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 clinical interest for its oleaginous qualities, with several European and American business already examining how to produce it in business quantities for biofuel. In January Japan Airlines undertook a historic test flight utilizing camelina-based bio-jet fuel, ending up being the very first Asian provider to explore 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 examination of camelina's operational efficiency ability and potential industrial viability.

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, requires 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 offer 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 with wheat, camelina can increase wheat production by 15 percent. A heap (1000 kg) of camelina will include 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 fats that make it a particularly fine livestock feed prospect that is just now gaining recognition 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 might be a perfect 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 family, is indigenous to both Europe and Central Asia and barely a brand-new crop on the scene: archaeological evidence shows it has been cultivated in Europe for a minimum of three centuries to produce both vegetable oil and animal fodder.

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

Camelina's capacity might allow Uzbekistan to start breaking out of its most dolorous tradition, the imposition of a cotton monoculture that has deformed the country's attempts at agrarian reform since attaining self-reliance in 1991. Beginning in the late 19th century, the Russian government figured out 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 also bought 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 ended up being self-sufficient in cotton; 5 decades later on it had become 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 stays wedded to cotton, producing about 3.6 million loads every year, which generates more than $1 billion while constituting approximately 60 percent of the country's tough currency earnings.

Beginning in the mid-1960s the Soviet federal government's directives for Central Asian cotton production largely 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 area's two main rivers, the Amu Darya and Syr Darya, into ineffective watering canals, resulting in the remarkable 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 diminished to one-quarter its original size in one of the 20th century's worst ecological disasters.

And now, the dollars and cents. Dr. Bill Schillinger at Washington State University just recently described camelina's service model 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 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 cash and access to the proficiency of America's land grant universities. What is certain is that biofuel's market share will grow with time; less particular is who will profit of developing it as a practical concern in Central Asia.

If the current past is anything to go by it is unlikely to be American and European investors, fixated as they are on Caspian oil and gas.

But while the Japanese flight experiments indicate Asian interest, American financiers have the academic proficiency, if they are willing to follow the Silk Road into establishing a new market. Certainly anything that minimizes water usage 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 governments, and farming and veggie oil processing plants are not only more affordable than pipelines, they can be built more quickly.

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