The current discoveries of a International Energy Administration whistleblower that the IEA may have misshaped crucial oil forecasts under extreme U.S. pressure is, if real (and whistleblowers hardly ever come forward to advance their professions), a slow-burning thermonuclear explosion on future international oil production. The Bush administration's actions in pushing the IEA to underplay the rate of decrease from existing oil fields while overplaying the opportunities of discovering brand-new reserves have the possible to toss governments' long-term planning into mayhem.

Whatever the truth, rising long term global needs seem specific to overtake production in the next decade, especially given the high and increasing costs of super-fields such as Kazakhstan's overseas Kashagan and Brazil's southern Atlantic Jupiter and Carioca fields, which will require billions in financial investments before their first barrels of oil are produced.

In such a scenario, ingredients and substitutes such as biofuels will play an ever-increasing function by extending beleaguered production quotas. As market forces and rising costs drive this innovation to the forefront, one of the richest prospective production locations has actually been totally ignored by investors up to now - Central Asia. Formerly the USSR's cotton "plantation," the region is poised to become a significant player in the production of biofuels if enough foreign investment can be obtained. Unlike Brazil, where biofuel is produced mostly from sugarcane, or the United States, where it is mainly 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 since of record-high energy prices, while Turkmenistan is waiting in the wings as an increasing manufacturer of gas.

Farther to the east, in Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, geographical isolation and relatively scant hydrocarbon resources relative to their Western Caspian neighbors have mostly prevented their capability to cash in on increasing global energy demands already. Mountainous Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan stay mainly reliant for their electrical needs on their Soviet-era hydroelectric facilities, however their heightened need to create winter season electrical power has resulted in autumnal and winter water discharges, in turn seriously impacting the farming of their western downstream next-door neighbors Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan.

What these three downstream countries do have however is a Soviet-era legacy 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 become a major producer of wheat. Based on my conversations with Central Asian government officials, given the thirsty demands of cotton monoculture, foreign proposals 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 bet on the future, especially as a plant native to the area 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 attracting increased clinical interest for its oleaginous qualities, with numerous European and American companies currently examining how to produce it in business quantities for biofuel. In January Japan Airlines undertook a historic test flight using camelina-based bio-jet fuel, ending up being the very first Asian provider to explore flying on fuel obtained from sustainable feedstocks during a one-hour demonstration flight from Tokyo's Haneda Airport. The test was the conclusion of a 12-month assessment of camelina's functional efficiency ability and prospective commercial practicality.

As an alternative energy source, camelina has much to advise 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 specific 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 as much as 100 gallons of oil and when planted in rotation with wheat, camelina can increase wheat production by 15 percent. A load (1000 kg) of camelina will consist of 350 kg of oil, of which pushing can draw out 250 kg. Nothing in camelina production is squandered as after processing, the plant's debris can be utilized for animals silage. Camelina silage has an especially attractive concentration of omega-3 fatty acids that make it a particularly fine livestock feed prospect that is simply now getting recognition in the U.S. and Canada. Camelina is quick growing, produces its own natural herbicide (allelopathy) and contends well versus 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 family, is indigenous to both Europe and Central Asia and hardly a new crop on the scene: historical evidence suggests it has actually been cultivated in Europe for at least 3 centuries to produce both vegetable oil and animal fodder.

Field trials of production in Montana, presently the center of U.S. camelina research, showed a vast array of outcomes of 330-1,700 lbs of seed per acre, with oil content varying 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 lb can create problems in germination to attain an optimum plant density of around 9 plants per sq. ft.

Camelina's potential might permit Uzbekistan to begin breaking out of its most dolorous tradition, the imposition of a cotton monoculture that has warped the country's attempts at agrarian reform considering that accomplishing independence 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 procedure was sped up under the Soviets. While Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan were also purchased 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 become self-dependent in cotton; five years later on 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 might to diversify, in the absence of alternatives Tashkent remains wedded to cotton, producing about 3.6 million lots every year, which generates more than $1 billion while making up around 60 percent of the country's tough currency earnings.

Beginning in the mid-1960s the Soviet government's instructions for Central Asian cotton production mainly 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 two main rivers, the Amu Darya and Syr Darya, into inefficient irrigation 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 an area of 26,000 square miles, has shrunk to one-quarter its initial 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 service 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 contrast to America or Europe - all that's missing out on is the foreign financial investment. U.S. financiers have the money and access to the knowledge of America's land grant universities. What is certain is that biofuel's market share will grow over time; less specific is who will gain the advantages of establishing it as a feasible issue in Central Asia.

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

But while the Japanese flight experiments show Asian interest, American investors have the scholastic knowledge, if they want to follow the Silk Road into developing a brand-new market. Certainly anything that lessens water use and pesticides, diversifies crop production and enhances the lot of their agrarian population will get most careful consideration from Central Asia's governments, and farming and grease processing plants are not only much more affordable than pipelines, they can be constructed faster.

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