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This week the U.S. Defense Department revealed that Afghanistan possesses at least $908.9 billion in untapped mineral resources. Iron accounts for $420.9 billion of the total, and copper $274.0 billion. There is cobalt, gold and molybdenum. The country could become, according to a Pentagon memo, the “Saudi Arabia of lithium.” Just as interesting, there is niobium, used to make superconducting steel.

Geopolitics: With the war in Afghanistan mired in uncertainty, news that the country has vast mineral treasures to exploit suggests a brighter future. But there's potential turmoil as well as copper and lithium in them thar hills. Reports earlier this week that not only those minerals but cobalt and gold have been discovered in the Central Asian hot spot, just waiting to be mined, gave fleeting hope that the yield of the newfound wealth, estimated at close to a trillion dollars, would offer an enticing exit from the bloody conflict and a new and prosperous civilization. If only. Sobriety quickly...

Afghan minerals may be triple original estimate: Mining Minister 17 June 2010, 1:28 p.m. By Daniela Cambone Of Kitco News www.kitco.com Montreal -- (Kitco News) --Afghanistan's mining minister, said Thursday that mineral deposits in his country could be worth up to three trillion dollars, triple the US estimate from earlier this week. "A very conservative estimate has been one trillion. Our estimation is more than that... the idea is it could be up to three trillion dollars," mining minister Waheedullah Shahrani told a news conference today in Kabul. Kitco News interviewed Shahrani back in March on the sidelines of the...

Afghanistan just got its worst news since the Soviet invasion three decades ago: American geologists have charted as much as a trillion dollars' worth of mineral deposits in that tormented landscape. Up to now, Afghanistan's internal factions and neighbors have been fighting over worthless dirt, Allah and opium. Assigning the battlefield a trillion-dollar value is not a prescription for reconciliation. Expect "The Beverly Hillbillies" scripted by Satan. Even were Afghanistan at peace, its endemic corruption would generate a grabocracy -- a Nigeria, not a Norway. Throw in inherited hatreds and the appetites of its neighbors, and Afghanistan may end up...

WASHINGTON — The United States has discovered nearly $1 trillion in untapped mineral deposits in Afghanistan, far beyond any previously known reserves and enough to fundamentally alter the Afghan economy and perhaps the Afghan war itself, according to senior American government officials. The previously unknown deposits — including huge veins of iron, copper, cobalt, gold and critical industrial metals like lithium — are so big and include so many minerals that are essential to modern industry that Afghanistan could eventually be transformed into one of the most important mining centers in the world, the United States officials believe. An internal...

WASHINGTON — The United States has discovered nearly $1 trillion in untapped mineral deposits in Afghanistan, far beyond any previously known reserves and enough to fundamentally alter the Afghan economy and perhaps the Afghan war itself, according to senior American government officials. The previously unknown deposits — including huge veins of iron, copper, cobalt, gold and critical industrial metals like lithium — are so big and include so many minerals that are essential to modern industry that Afghanistan could eventually be transformed into one of the most important mining centers in the world, the United States officials believe. An internal...

Supplies of speciality metals like lithium, neodymium and indium could become restricted unless recycling rates improve. That's the message from the first two of six reports prepared to assess metal supply sustainability for the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). 'Scientists should anticipate the possibility that they may not have the whole periodic table to work with in future,' says Thomas Graedel, who led the Global Metal Flows Working Group that compiled the studies.  The report series won't deliver overall supply and demand projections until nearer to the 2012 Rio Earth Summit. Nevertheless Graedel, who is also director of Yale University's Center for Industrial Ecology...

When you really need something, it's natural to worry about running out of it. Peak oil has been a global preoccupation since the 1970s, and the warnings get louder with each passing year. Environmentalists emphasize the importance of placing limits on consumption of fossil fuels, but haven't been successful in encouraging people to consume less energy—even with the force of law at their backs. But maybe they're going about it all wrong, looking for solutions in the wrong places. Economists Lucas Bretschger and Sjak Smulders argue that the decisive question isn't to focus directly on preserving the resources we already...

Just over a year ago, and spurred by an article in Time, I wrote a post on the possible global supply of lithium, which is used in renewable batteries, and a major choice for use in the batteries of electric vehicles, such as the Chevy Volt. Since the story has acquired more recent interest this week, and with new information, it is worth re-visiting the topic. I began the original post by noting that our first introduction to these batteries was in our role as an Explosives Lab when we found out - in a series of experiments a long...

Japanese research and development firm Eamex claims to have found a new way to increase the typical average life of a high-capacity lithium-ion battery. Eamex's new technology will allow the demanding batteries to sustain over 10,000 recharges over the course of 20 years. This rather dramatic increase in performance is made possible by new techniques such as a stabilization process of the battery's electrodes, which in-turn puts less stress on the battery's tin. This maintains the bonding of particles for a longer period of time and reduces the overall deterioration process. The result is a battery that lasts up to...

Sunlike stars that harbor planets are low on lithium, according to a recent study that may offer a new tool in the hunt for planets beyond our solar system. Stars are made almost entirely of hydrogen and helium. A small percentage of a star's mass comes from heavier elements, which astronomers refer to as metals. Young, yellow stars like our sun usually have more metals than older, redder stars, although the exact mix of those metals can vary. But astronomers have been unable to explain why otherwise similar sunlike stars have widely different lithium levels.The new study suggests that the...

The push for conversion to plug-in electric cars will do nothing to stop carbon emissions, a report by the GAO warns, throwing cold water on a push by Democrats to get more plug-ins on the road. In fact, the problem could be made worse as demand goes up at coal-fired electrical plants. Plus, the need for batteries may just have the US changing the dictators to which we’re chained, as IBD reports...

Alternative Energy: A government report says reliance on electric cars will do little to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and may merely shift our dependence on foreign sources from one set of dictators to another..."If you are using coal-fired power plants, and half the country's electricity comes from coal-powered plants, are you just trading one greenhouse gas emitter for another?" asks Mark Gaffigan, co-author of the GAO report. The report itself notes: "Reductions in CO2 emissions depend on generating electricity used to charge the vehicles from lower-emission sources of energy."

Drinking water which contains the element lithium may reduce the risk of suicide, a Japanese study suggests. Researchers examined levels of lithium in drinking water and suicide rates in the prefecture of Oita, which has a population of more than one million. The suicide rate was significantly lower in those areas with the highest levels of the element, they wrote in the British Journal of Psychiatry. High doses of lithium are already used to treat serious mood disorders. But the team from the universities of Oita and Hiroshima found that even relatively low levels appeared to have a positive impact...

UYUNI, Bolivia: In the rush to build the next generation of hybrid or electric cars, a sobering fact confronts both automakers and governments seeking to lower their reliance on foreign oil: almost half of the world's lithium, the mineral needed to power the vehicles, is found here in Bolivia - a country that may not be willing to surrender it so easily. Japanese and European companies are busily trying to strike deals to tap the resource, but a nationalist sentiment is building quickly in the government of President Evo Morales, an ardent critic of the United States who has already...

In what could potentially be a revolutionary breakthrough for everything from laptops to electric cars, a South Korean team of researchers have made a major discovery in Lithium-Ion battery technology. A team of researchers at South Korea’s Hanyung University, led by professor Cho Jaephil, has claimed a discovery that could extend lithium ion battery energy capacity by up to 1000% or more. The key to Jaephil’s discovery was the application of a three-dimensional porous silicon graphite cathode, which has the ability of holding up to ten times the number of lithium ions as conventional graphite cathodes. Patents have already been...

Had to go to the doctor yesterday and there I was, stuck in a small waiting room with no way to escape. See, there was this flatpanel on one wall tuned into CNN and I couldn't change the channel or sound, and unfortunately, McCain was speaking. I expect blather, falsehoods, socialism, innuendos, garbage and BS from BO but there is McCain with blather, falsehoods, socialism, innuendos, garbage and BS. I was looking for the nearest chair to put thru the screen. Decided it probably was not the best thing to do. If he had half a brain, and I'm sure...

When Claire, a pixie-faced 6-year-old in a school uniform, heard her older brother, James, enter the family’s Manhattan apartment, she shut her bedroom door and began barricading it so swiftly and methodically that at first I didn’t understand what she was doing. She slid a basket of toys in front of the closed door, then added a wagon and a stroller laden with dolls. She hugged a small stuffed Pegasus to her chest. “Pega always protects me,” she said softly. “Pega, guard the door.” James, then 10, had been given a diagnosis of bipolar disorder two years earlier. He was...

Stanford researchers have found a way to use silicon nanowires to reinvent the rechargeable lithium-ion batteries that power laptops, iPods, video cameras, cell phones, and countless other devices. The new version, developed through research led by Yi Cui, assistant professor of materials science and engineering, produces 10 times the amount of electricity of existing lithium-ion, known as Li-ion, batteries. A laptop that now runs on battery for two hours could operate for 20 hours, a boon to ocean-hopping business travelers. "It's not a small improvement," Cui said. "It's a revolutionary development." The breakthrough is described in a paper, "High-performance...

HONG KONG (Reuters) - Scientists are preparing for a large clinical trial in 2008 which aims to use stem cells to help 400 patients with spinal cord injuries in Hong Kong, mainland China and Taiwan grow new cells and nerve fibers. Stem cells from umbilical cord blood will be injected into the spinal cords of the participants, who will also be given lithium to help stimulate cell regeneration, said Wise Young, a leading neuroscientist and spinal cord injury researcher. "What we'd like to do is study a broad range of patients, not just (those with) complete (spinal cord injuries)," said...