Huge deposits of lithium are detected in Afghanistan. Lithium, mined from brine and clay, is considered the energy resource that will make electric cars cost effective enough to be practical for millions of drivers. Skyrocketing demand for use in cars, phones and computers could make lithium more valuable than oil within the 21st century. Lithium, like many of the world's oil, is found in regressive, inaccessible nations bearing animosity toward America. Countries like Argentine, Boliva and most most recently, Afghanistan, are called "Saudi Arabias of lithium" due to their confirmed mother lodes of the metal.
Article Source: Lithium in Afghanistan for electric cars – a blessing and a curse By Personal Money Store
Lithium – temptation for corrupt Afghans
The discovery of rich Afghan lithium deposits was announced by American officials Monday. The New York Times reports that lithium and major deposits of iron, copper, cobalt and gold worth about $1 trillion exist in Afghanistan. The previously undiscovered minerals, existing in quantities far beyond known reserves elsewhere, might be both good news and bad news for the U.S. Afghanistan war. The Afghan individuals could possibly be liberated from generations of war by the vast mineral wealth. One more possibility: the Taliban could intensify the Afghanistan war now the presence of lithium and other valuable minerals has raised the stakes. Either way, lithium could be a new and irresistible temptation for Afghan corruption.
Game-changer for the Afghanistan war
Afghanistan lithium and other strategic minerals could bring the international focus of mining to this failed nation. But Afghanistan’s economy, presently based on opium cultivation, has none of the heavy industry required to capitalize on its mineral wealth. To exploit Afghanistan lithium, China may have an edge, despite heavy U.S. investment of billions in treasure and barrels of blood in the Afghanistan war. Blogger Aziz Poonawalla points out that China will compete aggressively with the U.S. for strategic control of Afghanistan’s minerals. Analysts speculate that Obama will postpone plans to withdraw troops from the Afghanistan war, while a corrupt Hamid Karzai will cozy up to China and demand that U.S. forces clear out sooner.
Bolivian lithium tempers Afghan expectations
Lithium in Afghanistan is a "man bites dog" story because hundreds of millions of smartphones and laptops could depend on a country full of goats, mud huts and primitive tribal animosity. Automakers are counting on a future of electric cars made possible by advanced lithium-ion batteries. The New Yorker reports that half the known lithium resources in the world might be waiting under a huge expanse of salt flats in Bolivia. Yet experts doubt that Bolivian will benefit from its lithium treasure. Bolivia's socialist government stays in power by demonizing the U.S., and it's infrastructure is nearly as primitive as Afghanistan's. Boliva needs to establish a twentieth-century economy before it can ever hope to enrich itself with lithium as a twenty-first century fuel.
Or find itself as the battleground of a 21st century war.
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