Electrical car boom contributes to a turning point in the search for minerals in Sweden, writes Dagens Industri.
Falling mineral prices around 2013 caused the number of exploration licenses to fall from over 1,000 to about 600.
The bottom seems to have come in 2016 when the number of permits in force was 604. Now it's up to 616.
There is no significant rise, but it indicates a turnaround, says mountaineer Åsa Persson, from Bergstaten to Di.
Another signal is that the state authority last year, for the first time since 2012, received more than 200 applications.
The mountain state sees that much of the interest is about green energy, light for substances like lithium and cobalt - important components of batteries for mobile phones and electric cars.
But the old common metals are also hunted.
They will always be needed. Electric cars, for example, contain four to eight times as many coppers as traditional cars, "says Åsa Persson to Di.
