I am surprised that the current silver to gold ratio is still well over 40:1 (though I realize it has gradually gained ground). Does anyone know if there is any mining report which shows the annual silver output relative to gold? I cannot imagine that silver is coming out of the world's mines at 40+ times the rate of gold. From what I have read, primary silver mines are quite rare. Other than bullion, silverware and jewelry uses, it seems that all the silver used for photography, electronics, solar panels, etc is too cost prohibitive to try and ever recover and reuse. In an electronic age where nothing else tops silver's conductivity and reflective properties shouldn't silver be taken more seriously?? That coupled with the balooning debts of the worlds nations lead me to believe that silver is still asleep price-wise and has to go up dramatically in price relative to gold at some point soon. Gold is the current vogue and don't think it is overvalued BUT... I see silver as delivering the most profit potential in the future. Curious to see what your opinions are!
The total amount of gold ever mined in all of history would make a cube a little more than 50 feet on a side. Can't say how much silver has been mined. There are many silver mines that were closed until the price of silver rises enough to make it profitable to mine again. I think gold's conductivity exceeds silver's. Gold is used in applications were UV protection is needed, such as window glass and satelite shielding.
Approximately 735 million ounces of silver and approximately 80 million ounces of gold were mined last year. With the advent of digital photography, silver's use in that field is rapidly declining. World supply of annual mined silver exceeds non-recyclable industrial demand. Silver is mined mainly as a by-product of other ore mining, so it is basically "gravy" for the main mining operation. Which means that it can be sold relatively cheaply and still make a profit for its producer.
Silver has more uses (around 10,000) than anything except for oil (around 30,000). My understanding is that it is the most reflective metal, the best semiconductor of electricity, and the best thermal conductor as compared to any metal or man-made substitute. Nanosilver is in socks, deoderant, countertops, band-aids, water filters, the list is just staggering, and none of that is recoupable. Most silver is mined as a byproduct, but this can be misleading because if the price of silver were higher then a lot of those mines would become de facto primary silver mines since that status is based on amount of profit, not how much is produced. Nonetheless, the notion of epithermal deposition is that silver resides primarily at the surface of the Earth's crust and will become increasingly expensive to mine as they have to keep looking deeper for sparser deposits. Currently mine production exceeds demand, but above ground available silver is at 700 year lows, and the Silver Institute projects demand to grow largely due to solar panels, electronics, and medicinal uses. If this were to tip the scales in the direction of mining less than enough to meet demand then we will be looking at a seesaw between shortages and higher prices to draw out the sellers. The only mining numbers I have are from Chris Martenson's blog: http://www.chrismartenson.com/blog/screaming-fundamentals-owning-gold-and-silver/59850 Taking 2010 as an example, gold mined was around 2500 metric tons, where as silver was around 735 million oz. So 2500 metric tons * 2204 = 5,510,000 lbs * 16 oz = 88,160,000 ~ 88 million oz. So much closer to 10:1 on that ratio, although if you consider above ground available gold to above ground available silver you will get a ratio of more like 10:1 or 15:1 of more gold than silver. This does not include 'investment silver' however, which is debatable how much of which will come to market or not. I agree silver should be taken more seriously, and I have been primarily picking up .9999 pure silver lately as an extended play since that's the purity required for solar panels which I believe will be the first shortage we see down the road. In the US the historical gold/silver ratio was 15:1. In ancient Rome it was 20:1. At times in Egypt silver was worth more than gold. So I plan to start easing some silver into gold in increments once the ratio hits 25:1, but plan to always hold more wealth in silver than gold because I believe the fundamentals are unparalleled.
There is little to no silver used in electronics though I've heard this said many times on this forum. The predominate solder used in electronic printed circuit card production is a mixture of tin/lead. They don't use silver solder and doing so would cause of number of production issues. (it doesn't "wet" properly) Furthermore, if any PMs are used at all in a device it will be gold. The reason for gold isn't for its conductivity, but rather that it does not corrode/tarnish when exposed to air. Tarnish & Corrosion are resistant to electron flow. (conductivity falls) This is an issue with silver which is why you don't see silver connectors being used in electronic circuits. Because gold has gotten so expensive, there has been a cottage industry built up where the tiny amounts of gold are recovered from sacks of old electronic chips especially microprocessors. There is no similar industry for silver.
There is even technology that is being developed in Japan to recover gold from old cell phones. I forget the exact figures offhand, but in a program I saw on Japanese TV about a year ago, 300,000 cell phones or so were processed to yield several kilograms of recoverable gold.
Regarding circuit boards, I talked to a chemical engineer who told me how they have to take all lead out, and this is leading to increased PM usage. However, he said the most used PM in them today is palladium. This may explain that metals large gains in the last decade. As for being able to recycle from solar panels and other new technology, I think the justy is still out. They are still so rare I am sure most isn't recovered. I could see, though, if solar panels become commonplace and silver relatively pricey, operations opening up to grind up old solar cells to recover the silver. Chris
It seems like I'm finding conflicting information on the tarnish effect, but I think it's just a matter of the different properites of silver inks and films, nanosilver, and the regular metal itself. Obviously silver does tarnish (but it does not corrode however), because that's a requirement for it's effectiveness in photography. http://www.silverinstitute.org/electronics.php - First quote is on the right side apart from the main paragraph. This isn't to say the applications for gold and palladium aren't worthwhile, but no metal has a corner on the electronics market. One thing going for silver is that it's the cheapest by far.
Yeah lead free solder is a big problem though it has not been universally adopted and some equipment is exempted. Removal of lead from solder causes numerous issues, some of which are not well understood. They are still working on alternatives. It's an over-reach by the EU where the restriction came from. 80% of the lead used by industry goes in automobiles, (batteries & wheel weights). They did nothing about that. Silver may be added to electronic solder as part of the recipe, but it's in such a miniscule amount that I don't see where it's going to change demand.
My only source of knowledge concerning this was my conversation with this chemical engineer in the chip industry. He was talking about total value of metals in the boards, and how people freak out making sure they reclaim every last atom of gold possible, while the palladium was ignore even though it has a higher dollar inclusion rate in the boards. He is the one who told me palladium was the highest dollar inclusion PM in boards his firm was manufacturing. Btw he also told me of a firm putting together VC money to open up high tech electronic recyclling nationwide. He said higher metal prices and laws concerning lead and mercury were making these more feasible. He said the plants would gather electronic for a few states, shred the electronics to microscopic pieces, to allow the metals to then be salvaged via chemical reaction. He said this was nothing new, but the scale of this company would make it more practical and efficient. It would be nice if more of this could be recovered in the future. Chris
This statement I simply don't believe. I've been in a production CD/DVD plant and they are made in such a way that pitting an tarnishing are not an issue. High production disks (movies, music, software) are made by stamping resin in a mold in a similar way a coin is made. There is a master die, they make production dies from it, then this plastic is stamped in the die and you have your movie/software/music on a clear disk. They then "flash/spray" a layer of aluminium on it so it will reflect the led laser inside the player. The disk is then sealed with a top plastic coating and then it's silk screened with ink. The aluminum is not subject to tarnish because it's not exposed to air. There is no silver in this process. If there was, there would be a recovery process in place for the metal in these disks. There are none as people throw then in the trash. The rest of their statement sounds like a chamber of commerce speech. No doubt all of that occurs, but as I said above, silver has no inherant properties that doesn't preclude other better and cheaper options.
I would agree. I too have been inside one of these factories and saw their warehouse and I saw absolutely no sign of silver in the factory. Mostly plastics and like Fatima stated aluminum. Maybe that statement was an older version of cd/dvd's. Also, the trace elements of silver in personal goods was gaining traction a few years ago, but when I go into the store I cannot find those products anymore. I wonder if they were casualties of $40 silver. I see the silver institute still lists this use, but I think today if still used it is more in hospitals than general consumer use. Its too bad really, since that is a wonderful aspect of silver. People did benefit from having silver coinage they handled daily, though they didn't know it. Chris
Very true. This method was mostly perfected by the old Bell Telephone system decades ago. Since customers rented phones in those days, when the Ma Bell recovered them, they were recycled by pulverizing them and then various processes were used to recover the various metals used in their construction. This can be a profitable operation especially with older computers because they tended to have a relatively large number of connectors and of course gold was cheaper then. You can even buy the old scrap on ebay. http://tinyurl.com/44934vs
Yikes, if you can't trust the Silver Institute's information, who can you trust? I do recall that copper can replace a lot of the antibacterial uses for silver, which makes me wonder why silver was ever used in the first place, maybe just a marketing ploy. I still think the demand for solar panels will outpace whatever setbacks there are in demand for electronics and medicinal use, but it does seem like investment demand is what is driving the market right now.
Silver is a much better anti-bacterial, don't get me wrong. I am just wondering if the pricing has set that product usage back, at least for now. I am not trying to throw water on silver, but the hard truth is that $40 silver prevents many uses from being economical, and I believe you will see more substitutions of all PM's as prices rise, and companies have time to reformulate. I agree sir that investment is the biggest change in this market. That does not mean it is bad, or it will change any time soon, its just different usages right now. Gold has had investment as its biggest "use" for a long time, and that market has adjusted to that fact. They are not the same markets, just pointing out a similarity. Chris Btw the Silver Institutes info probably was real at a time, or is still true in certain instances. I don't think they are intentionally misleading, its just like Fatima said, it reads like a salesman pitch somewhat.
