Silver and Solar Panels 

Researchers at the University of New South Wales in Australia have published a paper suggesting that silver demand for photovoltaic solar panels is on track to use up at least 85% of global silver reserves. “The rapidly growing solar industry could exhaust much of the world’s known silver reserves by 2050 or even earlier,” says an article summarizing the paper at PV Magazine.

In fact, the researchers say newer solar-panel technology will require even more silver — “posing price and supply risks,” they write.

Alternative technologies do exist… but the changeover would be costly and even if it takes place, that will only increase demand for copper. And as we suggested above, there’s already ample copper demand out there.

Recycling old solar panels will be a source of silver, yes… but as the PV Magazine article points out, “it may still be several decades before the volume of PV waste processed each year is enough for more than a marginal contribution of new silver.”

Silver looks really great below $24 an ounce. It might get cheaper still in the early part of 2023, especially if there’s a stock-market washout and deep-pocketed investors need to sell silver to raise cash… but for the rest of the 2020s it looks nearly unbeatable.

Silver for solar panels and a backup for inflation.  A ying/yang investment.