The current revelations of a International Energy Administration whistleblower that the IEA might have misshaped crucial oil forecasts under intense U.S. pressure is, if true (and whistleblowers seldom come forward to advance their careers), a slow-burning atomic explosion 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 opportunities of finding brand-new reserves have the possible to throw governments' long-lasting planning into chaos.

Whatever the reality, rising long term international needs seem particular to overtake production in the next decade, particularly offered the high and rising costs of developing brand-new super-fields such as Kazakhstan's overseas 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 circumstance, additives and alternatives such as biofuels will play an ever-increasing role by extending beleaguered production quotas. As market forces and increasing rates drive this innovation to the forefront, among the wealthiest possible 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 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 primarily 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 seen their economies boom since of record-high energy prices, 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 reasonably scant hydrocarbon resources relative to their Western Caspian neighbors have mainly prevented their ability to capitalize increasing worldwide energy demands up to now. Mountainous Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan stay largely reliant for their electrical needs on their Soviet-era hydroelectric facilities, but their heightened requirement to create winter electrical power has resulted in autumnal and winter water discharges, in turn badly 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 agricultural production, which in Uzbekistan's and Turkmenistan case was mostly directed towards cotton production, while Kazakhstan, starting in the 1950s with Khrushchev's "Virgin Lands" programs, has ended up being a major manufacturer of wheat. Based on my conversations with Central Asian federal government authorities, offered 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 degree Astana for those sturdy investors happy to bank on the future, specifically as a plant indigenous 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 currently investigating how to produce it in industrial amounts for biofuel. In January Japan Airlines carried out a historical test flight using camelina-based bio-jet fuel, becoming the first Asian carrier to explore 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 evaluation of camelina's functional performance capability and potential commercial viability.

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 immune 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 bonus of camelina is its tolerance of poorer, less fertile conditions. An acre planted with camelina can produce up to 100 gallons of oil and when planted in rotation with wheat, camelina can increase wheat production by 15 percent. A lot (1000 kg) of camelina will consist of 350 kg of oil, of which pressing can extract 250 kg. Nothing in camelina production is wasted as after processing, the plant's debris can be utilized for livestock silage. Camelina silage has an especially attractive concentration of omega-3 fatty acids that make it a particularly great animals feed prospect that is just now 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 a perfect low-input crop appropriate 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: archaeological evidence shows it has actually been cultivated in Europe for at least three centuries to produce both grease and animal fodder.

Field trials of production in Montana, currently the center of U.S. camelina research, revealed a wide range of outcomes of 330-1,700 pounds 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 lb per acre variety, as the seeds' small size of 400,000 seeds per lb can develop problems in germination to achieve an ideal plant density of around 9 plants per sq. ft.

Camelina's potential could permit Uzbekistan to begin breaking out of its most dolorous legacy, the imposition of a cotton monoculture that has warped the country's efforts at agrarian reform since achieving self-reliance 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 industry. The process was accelerated under the Soviets. While Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan were also bought by Moscow to plant 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 decades later it had actually 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 lack of options Tashkent stays wedded to cotton, producing about 3.6 million tons annually, which brings in more than $1 billion while constituting approximately 60 percent of the nation's difficult currency income.

Beginning in the mid-1960s the Soviet government's instructions for Central Asian cotton production largely bankrupted the area's scarcest resource, water. Cotton uses about 3.5 acre feet of water per acre of plants, leading Soviet coordinators to divert ever-increasing volumes of water from the region's two primary rivers, the Amu Darya and Syr Darya, into inefficient irrigation canals, to the significant shrinkage of the rivers' last location, the Aral Sea. The Aral, once 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 one of the 20th century's worst ecological catastrophes.

And now, the dollars and cents. Dr. Bill Schillinger at Washington State University recently described camelina's business model 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 watering infrastructure and a modest wage scale in contrast 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 expertise of America's land grant universities. What is certain is that biofuel's market share will grow gradually; less particular is who will profit of establishing it as a feasible concern in Central Asia.

If the recent past is anything to go by it is not likely to be American and European investors, focused as they are on Caspian oil and gas.

But while the Japanese flight experiments suggest Asian interest, American investors have the academic knowledge, if they are willing to follow the Silk Road into developing a brand-new market. Certainly anything that minimizes 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 only more affordable than pipelines, they can be constructed quicker.

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