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Afghanistan may have $1 trillion worth of electric-vehicle metals. U.S. rivals angling to get them
CLEAN CARS, HIDDEN TOLL
Rich lode of EV metals could boost Taliban and its new Chinese partners
The Pentagon dubbed Afghanistan ‘the Saudi Arabia of lithium.’ Now, it is American rivals that are angling to exploit those coveted reserves.
Miners work to extract gemstones including kunzite and tourmaline in a mine in the Parun Valley in Afghanistan's Nurestan province. In doing so, they unearth lithium-bearing ore.
By Gerry Shih and Lorenzo Tugnoli
July 20 at 9:00 a.m.
CHAPA DARA, Afghanistan — Sayed Wali Sajid spent years fighting American soldiers in the barren hills and fertile fields of the Pech River Valley, one of the deadliest theaters of the 20-year insurgency. But nothing confounded the Taliban commander, he said, like the new wave of foreigners who began showing up, one after another, in late 2021.
Once, Sajid spotted a foreigner hiking alone along a path where Islamic State extremists were known to kidnap outsiders. Another time, five men and women evaded Sajid’s soldiers in the dark to scour the mountain. The newcomers, Sajid recalled, were giddy, persistent, almost single-minded in their quest for something few locals believed held any value at all. ... “The Chinese were unbelievable,” Sajid said, chuckling at the memory. “At first, they didn’t tell us what they wanted. But then I saw the excitement in their eyes and their eagerness, and that’s when I understood the word ‘lithium.’”
A decade earlier, the U.S. Defense Department, guided by the surveys of American government geologists, concluded that the vast wealth of lithium and other minerals buried in Afghanistan might be worth $1 trillion, more than enough to prop up the country’s fragile government. In a 2010 memo, the Pentagon’s Task Force for Business and Stability Operations, which examined Afghanistan’s development potential, dubbed the country the “Saudi Arabia of lithium.” A year later, the U.S. Geological Survey published a map showing the location of major deposits and highlighted the magnitude of the underground wealth, saying Afghanistan “could be considered as the world’s recognized future principal source of lithium.”
But now, in a great twist of modern Afghan history, it is the Taliban — which overthrew the U.S.-backed government two years ago — that is finally looking to exploit those vast lithium reserves, at a time when the soaring global popularity of electric vehicles is spurring an urgent need for the mineral, a vital ingredient in their batteries. By 2040, demand for lithium could rise 40-fold from 2020 levels, according to the International Energy Agency.
{snip}
Workers on a lunch break outside a mine in the Parun Valley in Nurestan province.
{snip}
Workers gather scrap metal for steel production at a Chinese-owned steel mill in Kabul.
{snip}
Mirwais Mohammadi in Chapa Dara, Pei-Lin Wu in Taipei, Taiwan, and Rick Noack in Paris contributed to this report.
By Gerry Shih
Gerry Shih is the India Bureau Chief for the Washington Post, covering India and neighboring countries. Twitter https://twitter.com/gerryshih
Rich lode of EV metals could boost Taliban and its new Chinese partners
The Pentagon dubbed Afghanistan ‘the Saudi Arabia of lithium.’ Now, it is American rivals that are angling to exploit those coveted reserves.
Miners work to extract gemstones including kunzite and tourmaline in a mine in the Parun Valley in Afghanistan's Nurestan province. In doing so, they unearth lithium-bearing ore.
By Gerry Shih and Lorenzo Tugnoli
July 20 at 9:00 a.m.
Correspondent Gerry Shih and photographer Lorenzo Tugnoli drove 15 hours from Afghanistan’s capital, Kabul, along boulder-strewn roads to the remote northeast of the country to explore its lithium industry, hiking two hours up a mountain to reach the mine shafts. Shih is The Washington Post’s New Delhi bureau chief, responsible for covering much of South Asia, and Tugnoli is a Pulitzer Prize-winning contract photographer for The Post based in Barcelona.
CHAPA DARA, Afghanistan — Sayed Wali Sajid spent years fighting American soldiers in the barren hills and fertile fields of the Pech River Valley, one of the deadliest theaters of the 20-year insurgency. But nothing confounded the Taliban commander, he said, like the new wave of foreigners who began showing up, one after another, in late 2021.
Once, Sajid spotted a foreigner hiking alone along a path where Islamic State extremists were known to kidnap outsiders. Another time, five men and women evaded Sajid’s soldiers in the dark to scour the mountain. The newcomers, Sajid recalled, were giddy, persistent, almost single-minded in their quest for something few locals believed held any value at all. ... “The Chinese were unbelievable,” Sajid said, chuckling at the memory. “At first, they didn’t tell us what they wanted. But then I saw the excitement in their eyes and their eagerness, and that’s when I understood the word ‘lithium.’”
A decade earlier, the U.S. Defense Department, guided by the surveys of American government geologists, concluded that the vast wealth of lithium and other minerals buried in Afghanistan might be worth $1 trillion, more than enough to prop up the country’s fragile government. In a 2010 memo, the Pentagon’s Task Force for Business and Stability Operations, which examined Afghanistan’s development potential, dubbed the country the “Saudi Arabia of lithium.” A year later, the U.S. Geological Survey published a map showing the location of major deposits and highlighted the magnitude of the underground wealth, saying Afghanistan “could be considered as the world’s recognized future principal source of lithium.”
But now, in a great twist of modern Afghan history, it is the Taliban — which overthrew the U.S.-backed government two years ago — that is finally looking to exploit those vast lithium reserves, at a time when the soaring global popularity of electric vehicles is spurring an urgent need for the mineral, a vital ingredient in their batteries. By 2040, demand for lithium could rise 40-fold from 2020 levels, according to the International Energy Agency.
{snip}
Workers on a lunch break outside a mine in the Parun Valley in Nurestan province.
{snip}
Workers gather scrap metal for steel production at a Chinese-owned steel mill in Kabul.
{snip}
Mirwais Mohammadi in Chapa Dara, Pei-Lin Wu in Taipei, Taiwan, and Rick Noack in Paris contributed to this report.
About this story
Reporting by Gerry Shih. Photography by Lorenzo Tugnoli.
Design by Lucy Naland. Development by Irfan Uraizee. Graphic by Hannah Dormido. Data analysis by Steven Rich. Research by Cate Brown.
Alan Sipress was the lead editor. Editing by Courtney Kan, Vanessa H. Larson, Olivier Laurent, Joe Moore and Martha Murdock.
Additional support from Steven Bohner, Matt Clough, David Dombrowski, Stephanie Hays, Gwen Milder, Sarah Murray, Andrea Platten, Tyler Remmel and Erica Snow.
Clean cars, hidden toll
As the global demand for electric cars begins to outpace the demand for gas-powered cars, Washington Post reporters set out to investigate the unintended consequences of a global EV boom. This series explores the impact of securing the minerals needed to build and power electric vehicles on local communities, workers and the environment.
By Gerry Shih
Gerry Shih is the India Bureau Chief for the Washington Post, covering India and neighboring countries. Twitter https://twitter.com/gerryshih
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