Where does all the alluminum come from for all the soda cans and beer cans in the world??

can they just culture the necesary materials themselves?

They dig around to find bauxite and smelt it with electricity or they reuse rancid spit filled cans.

Aluminum is the third most abundant element in the Earth's crust.

We trade with aliens for virgin gingers.

Aluminum is the most common metal on earth. They refine it from bauxite. It's better to refine it from old soda cans, hence the popularity of recycling programs.

A better question is http://phys.org/news/2012-09-mystery-apparent-dearth-lithium-universe.html

Aluminum takes huge amounts of electricity to make from Bauxite, but minimal amounts, 5% of making it, to recycle it, as such, 50% of the aluminum used is recycled, and 2/3 of what is existence today is recycled

http://earth911.com/recycling/facts-about-aluminum-recycling/

If this takes off, we will see more aluminum in cars

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/new-aluminum-body-ford-f-150-is-700-pounds-lighter/

The problem has always been, it is a difficult material to mass produce with. Welding is tricky, so glues or mechanical fastners have to be used to bond pieces together. This months Hot Rod magazine has an article about repariing an aluminum engine block, and the first step is to preheat the block to 200 degrees before any welding is done, and then using insulating blankets (asbestos in the case of this article) to allow the block to cool off slowly so stress cracks don't appear in the welds. Not sure if these precautions only apply to something dense like an engine block, or if it is for any welding.

well at least they won't rust.

Just to clarify. http://www.foodesto.com/media/catalog/product/cache/1/image/330x330/9df78eab33525d08d6e5fb8d27136e95/a/z/azaffran_olive_oil_extra_virgin_ginger_organic_250ml_rs.420__44429.jpg

Isn't there a massive horde of it in those Bolivian salt flats?