I just finished THE RACE FOR WHAT'S LEFT by Michael T. Klare.

It's about how now that the easy-to-get oil and many minerals (copper and many others that most people, like me, have never heard of) have, for the most part, already been extracted.

Now people are going after the hard-to-get resources in areas that are either remote and difficult to get to (underwater oil, oil in the area of the North Pole), or more expensive and environmentally unfriendly to extract (Alberta's tar sands, fracking).

It's heavy stuff, but I think worth the read. You don't have to have a scientific background to understand it; I don't. The minerals you've never heard of, he explains what they are used for.