Other Natural Resources: Metals
I have few (considering my geology background) sources on this key topic, but I will be adding others.
U.S. Minerals Databrowser, brought to you by Jonathan Callahan, who also supplied the very useful Energy Export Databrowser.
Scarcity of Nonrenewable Natural Resources: Analysis of 57 NNRs (not just metals) concludes that, by 2030, we will be critically short of almost 90% of them.
Scarcity of metal minerals: June 2009 presentation by Dr. Andre. Diederen that tracks alarming drops in supplies of most key metals; cause is linked to energy supply and cost.
Minerals scarcity: May 2009 post by Dr. Andre Diederen starts "If we keep following the ruling paradigm of sustained global economic growth, we will soon run out of cheap and plentiful metal minerals of most types."
China to limit exports of rare metals? Brief news item from August 2009; this will play out in the fall, and the rest of the world is paying close attention.
The Next Empire (2010): Article in The Atlantic investigates Chinese lobbying, investments, and other actions in Africa—food grown in Africa to feed China, metals mined in Africa to supply Chinese industry, railroads built in Africa to enable all the extraction and exploitation to proceed....a sort of new colonialism.