[epithermal]

"To recap, we have one Department of Defense official waving his arms and saying "the surveys are highly positive! Yay lithium!" and one scientist saying, "hold on there, hoss -- we have no idea how much lithium there is out there.""

[colorado tanker]

[Erik Latranyi]

The only reason Obama is keeping troops in Afghanistan is to exploit their natural resources!

(just using the liberal arguments against Bush)

[USFRIENDINVICTORIA]

I call B.S. on this.

There's no a priori reason to believe that it won't be economic, to extract lithium from the seas, and from Afghanistan.

It seems like just yesterday that the "usual suspects" were crying "peak lithium". There were FReerepublic threads on the topic:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2358999/posts

My conclusion: if free markets are allowed to operate, there will be no "peak lithium"; and lithium will be extracted from both the land and sea.

[marron]

The lithium deposits would have to be pretty rich to warrant risking your life to get it. Unless you’re ready to pay off the insurgents, you’ll be a target seven days a week.

Until the security situation turns around, a lot of the potential wealth in Afghanistan will have to remain potential.

Poverty doesn’t cause violence. Violence guarantees poverty.

[Little Ray]

Because the mental illnesses of the average jihadi must be treated with lead, not lithium.

[epithermal]

Aerogeophysical Survey Provides Promising Prospects of Economic Development in Afghanistan

[The Great RJ]

Having these resources doesn’t mean it is economically feasible to develop them. Afghanistan doesn’t have much of an infrastructure and without good road or rail transportation, the water and electric power to refine the materials and a means to get the finished products to market those mineral resources might as well be on the moon.