THE CAR OF THE FUTURE - The Power Surge: Energy, Opportunity, and the Battle for America's Future - page 134

and Kuwait—collectively accounted for a massive 60 percent of the
world's total. 81 (h e United States made up about 2 percent if you don't
count decades-from-commercial oil shale.) h ose i ve countries, along
with the next i ve down the list, also feature strong state intervention
in their economies, which makes manipulation easier. When it comes
to rare earth metals, China is dominant: i gures are sketchy at best, but
the U.S. Geological Survey estimates that China boasts fully half of the
world's reserves. 82
h e U.S. position when it comes to rare earth metals, though, is
stronger than in the case of oil: the United States appears to be home to
more than 10 percent of world reserves. Neighboring Canada also sits
atop massive amounts of rare earth material, including heavier elements
that are particularly critical for electric cars. 83 Moreover, demand for
rare earth metals is nowhere near the potential supply. Consumption
of such materials clocked in at around 136,000 tons in 2010. 84 Even if
the i gure were to rise tenfold, world reserves would still be a whopping
one hundred times annual demand.
Most rare earth elements that are important to new energy technolo-
gies also have greater prospects for economically at ractive substitutes
than oil does. Bat ery manufacturers, for example, are already respond-
ing to short-term supply concerns by turning to lithium ion materials
as a substitute for nickel-metal hydride. 85 Even as the 2010 skirmish
between China and Japan reached its peak, Toyota debuted “a new
magnet system that eliminated the need for neodymium,” a particularly
scarce rare earth. 86 Opportunities for rare earth ei ciency and recycling
will also rise if the materials' prices remain stubbornly high.
Rare earth metals, though, are not the only materials that raise eye-
brows. Lithium, a volatile silver-gray metal whose reserves are dominated
by Bolivia, comes up just as ot en in debate over new vulnerabilities. 87
World lithium resources are estimated to total about thirty-three mil-
lion tons, a whopping thirteen hundred times its 2010 production lev-
el. 88 But what would happen if electric vehicle sales skyrocketed, pulling
lithium demand up with them? Linda Gaines and Paul Nelson, both
scientists at Argonne National Laboratory, have put together some esti-
mates that test the limits of what might happen. 89 h ey started with
an aggressive scenario where pure electric vehicles rose to a i t h of