The recent discoveries of a International Energy Administration whistleblower that the IEA may have distorted key oil projections under intense U.S. pressure is, if real (and whistleblowers seldom step forward to advance their careers), a slow-burning thermonuclear explosion on future worldwide 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 discovering new reserves have the prospective to throw federal governments' long-term planning into chaos.

Whatever the reality, rising long term global needs seem particular to overtake production in the next years, specifically offered the high and increasing 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 financial investments before their very first barrels of oil are produced.

In such a circumstance, ingredients and substitutes such as biofuels will play an ever-increasing function by stretching beleaguered production quotas. As market forces and rising costs drive this technology to the forefront, one of the richest possible production areas has been completely neglected by investors up to now - Central Asia. Formerly the USSR's cotton "plantation," the area is poised to end up being a major gamer in the production of biofuels if sufficient foreign investment can be acquired. Unlike Brazil, where biofuel is manufactured largely 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 coasts of the Caspian, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan have actually seen their economies boom due to the fact that of record-high energy rates, 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 reasonably little hydrocarbon resources relative to their Western Caspian neighbors have actually mostly prevented their capability to cash in on increasing worldwide energy needs already. Mountainous Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan stay largely dependent for their electrical requirements on their Soviet-era hydroelectric infrastructure, but their increased need to generate winter electrical power has actually caused autumnal and winter water discharges, in turn significantly affecting the farming of their western downstream neighbors Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan.

What these 3 downstream countries do have nevertheless is a Soviet-era tradition of agricultural production, which in Uzbekistan's and Turkmenistan case was largely directed towards cotton production, while Kazakhstan, beginning in the 1950s with Khrushchev's "Virgin Lands" programs, has ended up being a significant of wheat. Based upon my conversations with Central Asian federal government officials, 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 hardy financiers ready to bank on the future, particularly as a plant indigenous to the region has actually already shown itself in trials.

Known in the West as incorrect flax, wild flax, linseed dodder, German sesame and Siberian oilseed, camelina is bring in increased clinical interest for its oleaginous qualities, with numerous European and American companies already investigating how to produce it in business quantities for biofuel. In January Japan Airlines carried out a historic test flight using camelina-based bio-jet fuel, becoming the very first Asian carrier to explore flying on fuel derived from sustainable feedstocks throughout a one-hour presentation flight from Tokyo's Haneda Airport. The test was the culmination of a 12-month assessment of camelina's operational efficiency ability and possible industrial practicality.

As an alternative energy source, camelina has much to suggest 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, requires less fertilizer and herbicides, and can be used as a rotation crop with wheat, which would make it of particular interest in Kazakhstan, now Central Asia's significant wheat exporter. Another reward of camelina is its tolerance of poorer, less fertile conditions. An acre planted with camelina can produce approximately 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 pushing can draw out 250 kg. Nothing in camelina production is wasted as after processing, the plant's debris can be used for animals silage. Camelina silage has a particularly attractive concentration of omega-3 fats that make it an especially great livestock feed prospect that is just now acquiring recognition in the U.S. and Canada. Camelina is quick 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 an ideal 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: historical proof suggests it has actually been cultivated in Europe for a minimum of 3 centuries to produce both grease and animal fodder.

Field trials of production in Montana, currently 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 varying between 29 and 40%. Optimal seeding rates have been identified to be in the 6-8 pound per acre range, as the seeds' little size of 400,000 seeds per pound can produce problems in germination to attain an optimum plant density of around 9 plants per sq. ft.

Camelina's potential could permit Uzbekistan to start breaking out of its most dolorous legacy, the imposition of a cotton monoculture that has deformed the nation's efforts at agrarian reform since attaining independence in 1991. Beginning in the late 19th century, the Russian government determined that Central Asia would become its cotton plantation to feed Moscow's growing fabric market. The process was sped up under the Soviets. While Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan were also purchased 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 ended up being self-dependent in cotton; five years later on it had ended up being a major 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 options Tashkent stays wedded to cotton, producing about 3.6 million lots yearly, which brings in more than $1 billion while making up roughly 60 percent of the nation's hard currency income.

Beginning in the mid-1960s the Soviet federal government's instructions for Central Asian cotton production mainly bankrupted the area's scarcest resource, water. Cotton uses 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 primary rivers, the Amu Darya and Syr Darya, into inefficient irrigation canals, resulting in the remarkable shrinking of the rivers' last destination, the Aral Sea. The Aral, as soon as the world's fourth-largest inland sea with an area of 26,000 square miles, has diminished to one-quarter its original size in among the 20th century's worst eco-friendly disasters.

And now, the dollars and cents. Dr. Bill Schillinger at Washington State University recently described camelina's company 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 garner $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 investment. U.S. investors have the money and access to the competence of America's land grant universities. What is certain is that biofuel's market share will grow with time; less specific is who will profit of developing it as a viable concern in Central Asia.

If the recent past is anything to pass it is unlikely to be American and European financiers, fixated as they are on Caspian oil and gas.

But while the Japanese flight experiments indicate Asian interest, American financiers have the academic knowledge, if they want to follow the Silk Road into developing a new market. Certainly anything that reduces water usage 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 veggie oil processing plants are not only much more affordable than pipelines, they can be constructed quicker.

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