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A False Narrative About Afghan Lithium?
I’ve heard a variety of claims lately about alleged lithium reserves in Afghanistan, and the supposed strategic disaster resulting from our abandonment of this critical resource to the Chinese. Just last night, I think that I overheard this claim in a podcast between Candace Owen and Nigel Farage. A comment on another post yesterday quoted some story claiming that Afghanistan was the “Saudi Arabia of lithium.”
I know almost nothing about lithium. I did generally recall:
- That it sits up there at the top left of the periodic table, just below hydrogen and above sodium.
- That it is used in modern rechargeable batteries.
- That in its dilithium form, it is critical to formation of a stable warp field (beam me up, Scotty!). Or maybe it’s critical to mixing the matter and antimatter (I’ll have to double-check with Geordi or Data).
- That it is used as a psychological medication.
It turns out that the psychopharmacological use involves treatment of bipolar disorder, also known as manic-depression. This is quite ironic, given the disconnection between the claims about the Great Afghan Lithium Treasure Trove and reality.
I. Executive Summary
We are being misled about Afghan lithium. I will detail the evidence of this below, but here is a summary.
The 2021 US Geological Survey report on lithium, reporting 2020 data, never mentions Afghanistan. There is zero Afghan production reported, zero Afghan reserves, zero Afghan resources. (I explain the technical distinction between reserves and resources later.)
Reported reserves total over 250 years of global production at the 2020 level. Reported resources total over 1,000 years of global production at the 2020 level. Reported lithium resources in the US alone total about 96 years of global production at the 2020 level.
The top five countries in reported lithium resources are, in order, Bolivia, Argentina, Chile, the US, and Australia. These five countries — us and four secure friendlies — have reserves totaling over 780 years of global production at the 2020 level. The top country is Bolivia, with about 24% of global lithium resources, and the source that I found lists the top 22 countries, down to a tie for 18th between Ghana, Austria, Finland, Kazakhstan, and Namibia, each with about 0.1% of global lithium resources. Again, Afghanistan is not on the list.
It remains possible that there are large lithium reserves and resources in Afghanistan. If so, they will be rather difficult to develop, and I don’t see how they could result in domination of the worldwide lithium market by the Afghans or some hypothetical ally like China.
So with these facts, I ask you: do you want to invest in a lithium mine in Afghanistan? If so, perhaps you should also look into the lucrative prospects of, as George Strait once sang, some oceanfront property in Arizona. And I’ll throw the Golden Gate in free.
II. Forbes: A Case Study in the False Narrative
There are many outlets reporting about the supposed “Saudi Arabia of lithium” now controlled by the Taliban. I’m going to pick on Forbes, because as you’ll see, they made this claim in an article this week, contradicting their own article from December of last year.
I’ll detail the USGS figures in the next section, but here figures on lithium production and lithium reserves in 2019, from this Forbes article in December 2020. The top 5 producers are:
- Australia, 52.9%
- Chile, 21.5%
- China, 9.7%
- Argentina, 8.3%
- Zimbabwe, 2.1%
These five countries accounted for 94.5% of global production in 2019. The US was in 7th place, producing 1.2%.
According to this Forbes article from last year, “the world is only producing a tiny fraction of its lithium reserves” and “[b]ased on 2019 production levels, known global lithium reserves would last more than 200 years.” The article lists the top 5 lithium reserves, by country, as:
- Chile, 55.5%
- Australia, 18.1%
- Argentina, 11.0%
- China, 6.5%
- US, 4.1%
This totals 95.2% of reported lithium reserves as of 2019.
Notice anything strange here? They don’t seem to mention that Great Afghan Lithium Treasure Trove. Afghanistan is not mentioned in the December 2020 Forbes article at all. The article concluded:
Given the abundance of lithium reserves and the current status of lithium production in their respective countries, it seems likely that Chile and Australia will remain the world’s lithium-production superpowers for the foreseeable future.
Was there something wrong with the folks at Forbes? Why did they overlook the “Saudi Arabia of lithium,” in an article at the end of 2020?
But in this Forbes article on August 30, 2021 — four days ago — it reported that “Afghanistan is sitting on a gold mine. I don’t mean that figuratively.” It lists a variety of minerals, but the one highlighted is, you guessed it, lithium, about which it states in its second paragraph:
It’s believed to have so much lithium, an increasingly important metal that’s widely used in battery technology, that Afghanistan could one day be known as the “Saudi Arabia of lithium,” according to a 2010 memo by the U.S. Department of Defense.
If you follow that link, you’ll find a Reuters “factbox” report from a couple of weeks ago (August 19), which links to a Reuters report from 2010, which says (without a link) that the New York Times reported that unnamed U.S. government officials said — according to the second Reuters link about what was supposedly stated by the NYT about the supposed statement of those anonymous government officials — that “Afghanistan could be holding $1 trillion of untapped mineral deposits including critical industrial metals such as lithium . . ..”
Right. That critical lithium that’s going to be in short supply and cripple the US and global economy even though, as I will detail in the next section, the U.S. alone has lithium resources totaling about 96 years of global production at current levels, and the top 5 countries — the US and four other secure, friendly countries — have lithium resources totaling over 780 years of global production at current levels.
Doesn’t this suggest to you that someone is misleading us? On to the USGS data.
III. The USGS Data on Lithium
I tracked down the 2021 US Geological Survey annual report on lithium for 2021, which reports information from 2019 and 2020 (here). Unfortunately, it withholds the figure for US production, “to avoid disclosing company proprietary data.” The remaining data is quite close to the Forbes report, though the USGS lists Brazil in 5th place rather than Zimbabwe. Here are the numbers for production (my calculations of percentages from the USGS data):
For 2019:
- Australia, 52.3%
- Chile, 22.4%
- China, 12.5%
- Argentina, 7.3%
- Brazil, 2.8%
For 2020:
- Australia, 48.7%
- Chile, 21.9%
- China, 17.0%
- Argentina, 7.5%
- Brazil, 2.3%
Note that these percentages exclude US production, which does appear small based on the Forbes figure.
The USGS report makes a distinction between “reserves” and “resources.” Reserves are akin to a “working inventory,” while resources (a larger figure) are concentrations of a material such that economic extraction is currently or potentially feasible. As I understand it, these figures vary over time based on new discoveries, new technologies, depletion of existing reserves, and changes in price. I’m going to report the “reserves” first.
First of all, don’t worry about a lithium shortage, Reported reserves total more than 250 times world production in 2020, and reported resources total more than 1,000 years of production at this level. Here are the top five countries by lithium reserves:
- Chile, 43.7%
- Australia, 22.3%
- Argentina, 9.0%
- China, 7.1%
- US, 3.6%
Afghanistan is not listed among the top 9 countries reported individually. The grand total of the reserves of the other countries, which would include Afghanistan, is 10.0%. Countries 6-9 in lithium reserves total 4.3% of total reserves, and are Canada, Zimbabwe, Brazil, and Portugal.
In addition to the information on reserves noted above, the report lists the resources of the top 23 countries. Total lithium resources total over 1,045 years of production at 2020 levels. The top 5, which account for 74.7% of the reported total, are:
- Bolivia, 24.4%
- Argentina, 22.5%
- Chile, 11.2%
- US, 9.2%
- Australia, 7.5%
US resources alone total about 96 years of total world production at the 2020 level. These top five countries total about 781 years of total world production at the 2020 level.
Guess which country is never mentioned in the USGS report on lithium? The supposed “Saudi Arabia of Lithium,” Afghanistan.
The lithium price reported by the USGS in 2020 ranged from about $71,000-$83,ooo per ton. Using $80,000, that’s a total of about $6.6 billion. If Aghanistan somehow took over all of global production, this revenue would increase their pitiful per-capita GDP of about $500 by approximately $175, without accounting for costs of extraction, infrastructure, or transportation.
IV. Analysis
You know the old saying, “a lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get it’s pants on.” It looks like this one is often misattributed, but who cares. It’s true.
I trust that I have now demonstrated that the claims about the Great Afghan Lithium Treasure Trove are, shall we say, not substantiated. “Lie” is actually a pretty strong word, because I haven’t presented evidence that anyone repeating this false narrative knew that it was false. I think that this is how the media operates these days.
I’m sorry to keep sounding like Cassandra. We all need to be highly skeptical of media reports, especially when they support the latest media narrative.
On second thought, I’m not sorry about sounding like Cassandra. I do wish that people weren’t so credulous and misinformed.
Published in Foreign Policy
Just to be clear, Jerry, I liked Unsk’s comment because of his skepticism, not because he called you a traitor.
I would imagine that the Taliban would not want to give up this important source of money without an alternative source. They may also be interested in a source that does not enrich individual warlords.
It moderates the matter-antimatter reaction, like graphite bricks in a fission reactor. Geez, man, it’s elementary school physics!
SmitherMemes. 😁
I am more worried the Chinese control Bagram Air Force Base.
But I do see China scooping up resources t that our modern world finds necessary. Given the past 18-months, I dont think the CCP will play nice.
Jerry Giordano (Arizona Patrio… (View Comment):
I remember how inflamed Trump was that we never took any oil to help pay for all our efforts in Iraq. The same can be said for Afghanistan. Even though I realize that there was no infrastructure to sustain development of mineral resources,You would think that after 20 years we would at least Have investigated thoroughly the possibilities for mining the rare earth minerals that supposedly were in such great Reserve there.
Search the NYT for “Afghanistan” AND “lithium,” and you get things like:
U.S. Identifies Vast Mineral Riches in Afghanistan (Saudi Arabia of lithium here) and other stories and opinion pieces from June 2010
And from 2015,
Afghan Minerals, Another Failure. Not because there suddenly weren’t any; the article opens like this:
These days the NYT is mainly an IC—and especially CIA—leak and disinformation outlet and a Democrat strategy and propaganda house, but in 2010 they did occasionally do journalism. I was unable to find an actual text for that “DOD memo.” I don’t know whether that makes leak, disinformation, DNC propaganda, or news more likely.
In any case, problem solved by Biden.
This is actually interesting. Googling for Afghanistan AND lithium at usgs.gov returns a number of links. But on the USGS site itself, almost all thelinks return 403 (access forbidden.) There’s also 404, and one to a Scientific American piece which maps a number of different known and purported mineral deposits in Afghanistan.
This is not because the USGS site has been reconfigured and the links didn’t make it. Searching the USGS directly returns the same forbidden access messages.
True, absence of evidence isn’t evidence of absence. Is the disappearance of previously available information evidence of something? Maybe. But of what, I don’t know.
I think Jerry’s right about this. Lithium hasn’t exactly been a recent thing; why is it now supposedly ultra-ultra rare? If we conservatives are so concerned about it now, how come Trump didn’t seem to think much of it either? Like oil and gas, the key is “economically feasible for extraction”, and price has everything to do with it. The right has always pointed out that when energy prices go up, abra-cadabra, more reserves are magically available. And we’re right to say so.
I think part of the reason for this logical disconnect has to do with electric cars. Because the right has a major cultural Jones against them, it’s “necessary” to constantly falsely claim that all the reserves are in China, and all the miners are, well minors–children imprisoned in the mines. Horrible, right? Just so a bunch of Tesla owners can drive 150 miles an hour, right? Of course, if the deposits aren’t concentrated in China, but are also widely available elsewhere, if at higher cost, it undercuts the official party line.
It’s found in many places, it’s cheapest to get using slave labor from old brine deposits like in South America and (probably? possibly?) in Afghanistan. It uses a huge amount of water. It’s harder to do it by mining ores. The CCP is doing a really good job of getting direct or indirect control of the production. All around the world. The figures I’m seeing are something just shy of 50% of production.
Couple that with the project of ending the production and use (including in cars and trucks) of fossil fuels in the US, and you’ve got a guaranteed massive US increase in demand for a commodity which is increasingly under the control of the CCP.
Trump’s energy independence project has been turned against the US; while we were thinking we had it made in the shade, China has locked up a lot of long term petroleum deals with the Gulf states. Now China’s man in Washington is undoing energy independence and placing a huge inflation tax on the lower and middle classes. Meanwhile, China still has its deals, and is working to dethrone the dollar as the world’s reserve currency.
There is plenty of oil in the world. What are consumers willing to pay?
Presumably because the Technocratic Elite expect a massive jump in demand once they make the internal combustion engine illegal.
And pretty soon the only places where it won’t be a controlled substance are the developing countries.
Not rare, never was rare. The key question is not just where exploitable deposits are but who controls them. Because free trade, right? Well, free trade, economic warfare, potato potahto.
Right now China controls the biggest plurality of lithium supplies (and I don’t mean just contracts with producers, but major influence on and investment in other large producers that are nominally, say, American) and is going for market control. And guess who makes most of the battery cells?
There’s a subtext to lithium being common: the EVs, the windmills, the electronics to control them also need actually rare elements. The CCP has been trying to lock them up as well.
Biden wants 50% of new vehicles to be EVs within 8 years. Detroit is on board. Wall Street is on board. Main Street, not so much.
What’s the CCP’s ROI on its investment in the Bidens?
I see no chance of the Taliban, even with Chinese “help” running mines over the longer term. Afghanistan is far too divided to allow the smooth operation of a major mining operation. See the history of Liberia which contains world class deposits of iron ore, but has been tearing everything up since the 1980s.
The Taliban can’t live in peace with other Afghanis. I don’t know why I should believe that the Taliban and the CCP will be a marriage made in heaven. Does it seem likely that the Taliban is really going to be super-friendly with a regime that puts Muslims in concentration camps? Perhaps both parties are hoping to make a deal then cheat the other side.
Umm, how does that conflict with my point? I will give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that when I wrote “recycle” you assumed I meant “consumer disposal.” I did not. I wrote “recycle” to mean industrial re-use at some level.
Regardless, that notice relates to a fear of fires and the potential toxicity, not whether there are practical ways to re-use Li.
It depends on how much profit margin there is in lithium sales. Is there enough “rake” for: the local warlord who protects the mines, the regional bosses who tax trade, the intermediary clans who operate road tolls, the government functionaries who provide expedited export services and the customs officials who conduct safety inspections of all exports.