Silver demand: upside and substitution?
…the silver contacts in solar cells with copper contacts, which have 99% lower metals costs, but 3-7x higher manufacturing costs, compared to the easy screen-printing methods used in today’s silver…
Solar contacts: silver bullet?
The front contacts in today’s solar cells are made of screen-printed silver. Thus solar cells absorbed 11% of 2021’s silver market, and growing. Silver can be substituted with copper. But…
Froth flotation: the economics?
…to 10GTpa). This includes substantively all of the worlds metals, from copper, to lithium, to nickel, to graphite, to iron ore, to PGMs, to Rare Earths. It also includes over…
Runaway train: energy, interest rates and inflation?
…more materials becomes harder. Unfortunately solar panels do not grow on trees. Building more solar requires building more PV silicon, or silver, or copper production facilities. These are also capital…
Overview of mining equipment companies?
…25-30% in Asia. Another 25-30% is usually associated with the copper industry, 25-30% with the gold-silver industry, and the remainder is diversified (charts below). Direct focus on the energy efficiency…
How do commodities perform during recessions?
…in recessions? Commodities assessed in the data-file include oil, natural gas, coal, corn, iron ore (precursor to steel), aluminium, copper, zinc, nickel, platinum, silver and gold. Recessions assessed in the…
Solar: energy payback and embedded energy?
…solar panel is about 65% glass, 15% aluminium, c10% polymers (mainly EVA encapsulants and PVF back-sheet), c3% copper. Photovoltaic silicon is only 5% of the panel by mass, but about…
Energy storage: top conclusions into batteries?
…fluorinated polymers and battery-grade nickel; then graphite and copper. We are less worried about cobalt. Our best data-file into materials used in a lithium ion battery, and their costs, is…
Power grids: transmission and distribution kilometers by country?
…network impacts from rooftop solar. Overall, the build-out of renewables and electrification are transformational for power grids (TSE research summary here). And it pulls on the demand for copper and…
Energy Technologies – Written Insights
…current than copper, with almost no electrical resistance. They must be cooled to -200ºC. So costs have been moderately high at 35 past projects. Yet this 16-page report explores whether…