Silver Isn’t Precious Anymore, Just Critical

“Keep taking pictures,” Buffett said. “Every picture you take makes me more money.”

He’d famously purchased $1billion of silver the year before 1998.

At the time, that was one-quarter of the global mine supply of silver. And one-quarter of all silver was used for developing film.

Buffett may have laughed, but he wasn’t really joking. He actually owned the entire photography development market.

Then along came digital cameras. And silver demand slid for decades from 229 Moz in 1999 to an all-time expected low of 24 Moz in 2025.

A quarter-century ago, another quarter of silver was used for jewelry and silverware. Combined demand in 2023 was almost exactly the same as 1993.

One leg of the silver demand stool has been sawn off and used for kindling, and the second is wobbly at best.

But over the past two years, something has occurred that happens extremely rarely in commodities.

It’s transforming silver in ways that Buffett couldn’t have predicted. And it’s going to completely change investor sentiment.

Solar Is Served on a Silver Platter

As consumer use for silver has dwindled, it’s actually found two other primary uses. They’re both already far greater than any photography demand.

And they’re still growing.

Unlike gold, silver isn’t just pretty. It’s also extraordinarily useful in unpredictable ways. It is the most conductive metal on planet earth, making it the most efficient metal for photovoltaic cells solar power.

Silver’s moving from your dinner table and camera to the solar grid, and supply’s about to snap.

From 2019 to 2024, silver used for solar rose from 75Moz to 198Moz or, 20% of global demand.

But solar’s growth isn’t stopping, and silver is along for the ride.

BloombergNEF, famous for underestimating solar growth, expects solar to have record breaking year in 2025, with 698GW of new capacity installed. Then 753GW in 2026, and 780GW in 2027.

• That would put solar silver demand at around 20% of total silver supply.

Fortunately, the silver intensity of solar panels has been dropping in a process known as “thrifting”. Standard solar cell (PERC) usage has dropped from 18.5 mg to 10 mg.

At a macro scale, that looks like GW per Moz of silver going up:

But that’s about to shoot into reverse. Because standard solar cells are being replaced by “TOPCon” cells which already increased from 23% of the market to 60% in China in 2024 alone.

TOPCon cells use more than twice as much silver as PERC cells. And the most efficient solar cell type in the world, HJT, requires 1.5-2x as much silver as TOPCon.

If TOPCon’s market share climbs to 84% in the next four years (as projected) and global solar capacity additions hit BloombergNEF’s forecast of 827GW…

• Silver’s annual solar demand could reach 557Moz, 54% of annual supply.

By itself, solar could keep the silver market humming. But silver didn’t just become a solar metal.

Silver Is an Industrial Metal Now

Solar’s conductivity makes it the most crucial metal for the electrification of the industrial world.

Take solid-state EV batteries, for example. Silver is lightweight and highly conductive, helping EVs achieve better mileage.

Samsung’s next-gen solid-state EV battery has twice the energy density of its competitors and gets 600 miles on a single 9-minute charge.

Samsung already has an agreement to begin production and when it does, every car manufacturer will have to play catch-up.

• If that battery were used in just 20% of global car production, it could take an additional 514 Moz of silver.

In the unlikely event that silver’s demand from solar and EVs falls in the coming years, there are other sources of demand waiting to take over or already spiking:

• Every AI data center chip
• Every advanced electrical relay
• Every smart grid infrastructure upgrade
• Every U.S. manufacturing facility

All of them ratcheting up silver demand. Which is why the global industrial silver demand is soaking up nearly all of the silver on the planet.

Don’t mishear me: Silver is still a precious metal. But now it’s a highly industrial metal too.

And that competition is making silver more valuable than ever before.

The Developing Metal

The math is simple and brutal: annual silver supply of roughly 1 billion ounces faces potential demand of 1.1+ billion ounces from just solar and EVs combined.

And at the same time, the market has entered its fifth straight year of structural deficit nearing a total 1B ounces.

• This is more market forces, at a greater magnitude, than silver has ever had before.

Which is why investors and even central banks are beginning to accumulate silver again at historic rates.

In June 2025 alone, silver ETFs saw $1.6B in net inflows more than all of 2024.

Already this year, silver has appreciated by 32%, to just under $40.

But that’s just the beginning.

Despite record-breaking industrial use, silver is still priced like an afterthought. Gold gets the headlines, but silver has the torque.

What’s likely to come could rival what Buffett saw back in his day and the returns could be incredible.

Regards,

Marin

 

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