Gold & Silver Education Center

It seems that more and more creative ways to use silver are being explored. One determined poster in the Wall Street Silver forum actually came up with a list of 100 uses for silver . One interesting new potential use is described in a recent publication released by the Silver Institute . They ask if battery free wearables might be part of our future. Below is an excerpt from the publication explaining how silver factors in to the equation. Are Battery-Free Wearables Possible?  "What if wearables could be powered by electricity generated by the body’s own heat?  Researchers at the Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST) are studying whether an ordinary thermocouple -- two different pieces of metal that generate electricity when sandwiched together in the presence of heat -- could generate enough electrical energy to operate a wearable device like heart rate or blood pressure monitors without the need for batteries.  Thermocouples are common in devices like fire a...

  Silver is a key component used in solar panels and may also emerge as an important catalyst for new and improved long life batteries. Solar power generation systems need long life batteries to store energy for use when the sun isn't shining. Clearly there is plenty of reason to believe that demand for silver for use in solar power systems will be strong in the coming years. In this article we will review offer up some excellent articles and resources on this topic. We'll start with this Barron's article on the potential impact on silver from the growing use o solar panels. here is an excerpt: "Goldman Sach’s Mikhail Sprogis explained in a note last month that  silver is a key component in the solar industry , which is poised for big growth. Solar investments account for 18% of silver industrial demand and about 10% of overall demand for the metal. Sprogis has a $30 price target on it." . . . . .  "Goldman estimates solar installation will jump 50% from 20...

Silver has been known to have anti bacterial properties for some time. The use of silver in medicine is another promising area of growth heading into the future. The Silver Institute has brief summary you can find here on some medicinal uses for silver. They also have a more detailed dive into the topic called Silver in Medicine - Past, Present. and Future .  Here is an excerpt: "But what of the future?  Silver continues to be the subject of intense R&D efforts, particularly with  respect  to  limiting  and  preventing  infection.  As mentioned  above,  infections  associated  with  implantable  medical  devices  adversely  affect  patient  health  and  quality  of  life,  and  the  overall healthcare costs. The emergence of antibiotic-resistant pathogens has made the...

A question that someone learning about the gold and silver markets for the first time might ask is  -- Is it a good idea buy the stocks of companies that mine for gold and silver?  On the surface, it might seem like a fairly simple question. In reality, the answer can be a bit complicated. Investing in mining company stocks is definitely a more complex decision than simply making an investment in gold or silver itself. In this article, we will delve into some of the pros and cons so that potential investors can decide for themselves if it makes sense for them to invest in mining stocks. Investing in gold or silver is a fairly simple decision for most people. While there are some different ways to to invest, most people probably just think of investing in gold or silver as buying some of the physical metal one way or another. Once its purchased, it just goes up and down based on the market prices for gold and silver. So for the most part, you only need to try to understand the ...

The recent news about a potential attempt to squeeze the price of silver higher has attracted the interest of millions of people who may be new to the precious metals markets and in particular the silver market. The purpose of this blog will be to provide fundamental educational resources to learn about these markets and their longer term prospects. Having followed these markets now nearly 20 years, I have learned that having a solid basic educational foundation is important to anyone who may be thinking about investing in this market sector. It is not the purpose of this blog to offer investment advice in any way.  Basically, as we follow these markets, we will look for the highest quality information sources to provide readers here with the tools to better evaluate the precious metals market sector and therefore be in a better position to make personal decisions in the months and years ahead as they consider where to allocate their investment capital.  Since silver has been ...

Silver is already a key component in cars today because cars use computers and computers use silver. Silver also shows up in other places such as in the glass windshield to help with defogging . Looking ahead though, as electric vehicles grow in number, silver looks to be potentially important there too. One of the negatives with electric vehicles is the driving range in miles for the car before the batteries have to be recharged and also the entire lifetime of the batteries which are expensive to replace. Silver may help with those problems as the video below explains. It seems using silver in new test batteries at Samsung achieved some important potential breakthroughs in both areas. The use of silver to potentially improve existing batteries is explained in the video. Silver shows up at around the 3:40 mark A battery with a 500 mile range (or more) and that can be recharged over a lifetime of 500,000 vehicle miles would be a major improvement over the technology in electric vehicles...