The current discoveries of a International Energy Administration whistleblower that the IEA might have misshaped key oil forecasts under extreme U.S. pressure is, if true (and whistleblowers seldom come forward to advance their professions), a slow-burning thermonuclear explosion on future global oil production. The Bush administration’s actions in pressing the IEA to underplay the rate of decline from existing oil fields while overplaying the possibilities of discovering brand-new reserves have the potential to throw governments’ long-term planning into mayhem.

Whatever the truth, increasing long term international needs appear specific to outstrip production in the next decade, specifically given the high and rising expenses of establishing new super-fields such as Kazakhstan’s overseas 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 circumstance, additives and alternatives such as biofuels will play an ever-increasing function by extending beleaguered production quotas. As market forces and rising prices drive this technology to the leading edge, one of the wealthiest possible production locations has been totally ignored by financiers up to now - Central Asia. Formerly the USSR’s cotton “plantation,” the area is poised to become a major player in the production of biofuels if enough foreign investment can be acquired. 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 an increasing producer 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 mostly inhibited their ability to capitalize rising worldwide energy needs already. Mountainous Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan remain mostly reliant for their electrical requirements on their Soviet-era hydroelectric facilities, but their heightened need to create winter season electricity has caused autumnal and winter season water discharges, in turn badly impacting the agriculture of their western downstream next-door neighbors Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan.

What these three downstream countries do have nevertheless 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 manufacturer of wheat. Based upon my conversations with Central Asian government officials, given the thirsty demands of cotton monoculture, foreign proposals to diversify agrarian production towards biofuel would have excellent appeal in Astana, Ashgabat and Tashkent and to a lower extent Astana for those durable financiers going to bank on the future, especially as a plant indigenous to the region has currently proven itself in trials.

Known in the West as incorrect flax, wild flax, linseed dodder, German sesame and Siberian oilseed, camelina is attracting increased scientific interest for its oleaginous qualities, with a number of European and American business already investigating 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 carrier to explore flying on fuel stemmed from sustainable feedstocks throughout a one-hour presentation flight from Tokyo’s Haneda Airport. The test was the culmination of a 12-month evaluation of camelina’s operational efficiency capability and prospective business viability.

As an alternative energy source, camelina has much to advise 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, requires 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 major wheat exporter. Another bonus of camelina is its tolerance of poorer, less fertile conditions. An acre sown 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 load (1000 kg) of camelina will include 350 kg of oil, of which pressing can draw out 250 kg. Nothing in camelina production is lost as after processing, the plant’s debris can be used for livestock silage. Camelina silage has a particularly appealing concentration of omega-3 fats that make it an especially great livestock feed candidate that is just now gaining acknowledgment in the U.S. and Canada. Camelina is quick 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 could 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 hardly a new crop on the scene: historical proof shows it has actually been cultivated in Europe for at least 3 millennia to produce both grease and animal fodder.

Field trials of production in Montana, currently the center of U.S. camelina research study, revealed a vast array of outcomes of 330-1,700 lbs of seed per acre, with oil material varying between 29 and 40%. Optimal seeding rates have been figured out to be in the 6-8 pound per acre range, as the seeds’ little size of 400,000 seeds per pound can develop problems in germination to accomplish an ideal plant density of around 9 plants per sq. ft.

Camelina’s capacity might allow Uzbekistan to start breaking out of its most dolorous legacy, the imposition of a cotton monoculture that has deformed the nation’s attempts at agrarian reform given that 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 fabric market. The procedure was accelerated under the Soviets. While Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan were also bought 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 become self-sufficient in cotton