One of the biggest reasons for the push toward hybrids and electric vehicles is America’s desire to wean itself off of foreign oil, specifically oil that comes from the Middle East. You don’t need to be a political scientist to know why: Our country has routinely been embroiled in one conflict or another in that part of the world since the first Gulf War began in 1990, and while a small fraction of the country’s oil comes from Middle Eastern countries, petroleum will forever be intertwined with war in the minds of the American public. Not so with electricity.

That may change soon, though. According to The New York Times, military geologists have located vast, previously undiscovered mineral fields in Afghanistan, including land rich in -- you guessed it -- lithium. If the geologists are correct, the country could hold as much of the element as the rest of the world combined. That means that as EVs and hybrids grow in popularity, manufacturers will likely begin to look to Afghanistan as a provider. If this sounds like the same song and dance you’ve heard with oil and countries such as Saudi Arabia and Iraq, that’s because it is.

While it’s tempting to believe that EVs are the one perfect transportation solution that the world has been waiting for, the reality is that the cars will still require hard resources like lithium. Those resources will still have ecological and geopolitical impacts as great as or even greater than those tied to oil -- and that means we may be in the desert for a very long time.