Just One Company Will Use 2.1 MILLION OUNCES of Silver THIS YEAR.
This one company would fulfill 20% of USA's second largest Silver miner's production schedule.
ES Foundry has launched its first U.S.-based solar cell manufacturing facility in Greenwood, South Carolina, positioning itself as the nation’s largest producer of high-efficiency crystalline silicon photovoltaic cells. The 400,000-square-foot plant, situated on the Fujifilm campus, began operations in January 2025 with an initial annual production capacity of 1 gigawatt (GW) and employs 125 workers. By Q3 2025, the facility plans to expand to 3 GW of annual output and 500 employees as part of its second-phase growth. A critical component in solar cell manufacturing is silver paste, which is used in conductive layers.
Each gigawatt of solar power production requires approximately 700,000 ounces of silver equivalent. This relationship scales linearly with production capacity, as shown below:
Case Study for Perspective
Company Name and US State: ES Foundry, South Carolina
One company uses 2.1 Million ounces, what if there were 11 more?
The chart illustrates the annual silver production of two major U.S. silver producers, Hecla Mining and Coeur Mining, for 2023:
Hecla Mining: Produced 14.3 million ounces of silver, making it the largest primary silver producer in the United States. This output was supported by consistent performance at its Greens Creek mine and contributions from other operations like Lucky Friday and Keno Hill.
Coeur Mining: Produced 10.3 million ounces of silver in 2023, with significant contributions from its Rochester and Palmarejo mines. Coeur is a diversified mining company with operations in both gold and silver.
Therefore you can say that ES Foundry silver orders would take up 20% of Coeur Mining’s production schedule.
Another way of saying it is that you add Hecla and Coeur at 24.6 Million. How many Solar manufacturing plants like ES Foundry does it take to devour US Silver Production? wait for it
11 more like ES Foundry (that’s not very many)
I can already hear what many of you are saying because you write in all the time.
But Trump But Trump But Trump hates Solar.
To which I say But Elon But Elon But Elon owns a Solar company!!!!
If you start counting up all the data centers in Virginia alone and with the trade war intensifying between China (leader in Solar manufacturing) and this signaling a return to US based solar, this is a HUGE DEVELOPMENT.
Tariffs Matter, They Originate to Punish the Competitor & Incentivize the Home Team.
But they have unintended consequences as we’ve pointed out
This rapid expansion of ES Foundry's solar cell production capacity in the United States could signal a significant shift in the global solar manufacturing landscape.
Historically, China has dominated the solar panel industry, but recent developments suggest a potential resurgence of U.S. manufacturing in this sector. The implementation of tariffs on Chinese solar products, starting at 10% and with discussions of potential increases up to 60%, is creating a more favorable environment for domestic production.
This policy shift, coupled with the incentives provided by the *Inflation Reduction Act, is making U.S. solar manufacturing increasingly competitive. The ES Foundry case demonstrates that American companies can rapidly scale up production to meet growing demand, potentially marking the beginning of a broader trend of reshoring solar manufacturing capabilities.
If this trend continues, it could reduce dependence on some Chinese imports, strengthen domestic supply chains, and “potentially” accelerate the adoption of solar energy in the United States.
The Industrial Conundrum (Silver’s dual role as monetary and industrial is confounding at best)
First, I am still a strong advocate that Silver is a managed commodity (as are most of them). Silver, Gold, and Oil are the top three manipulated mineral resources. Though oil is technically not a mineral, it is still classified as a mineral resource.
Oil is classified as a "mineral resource" despite not technically being a mineral because, in geological terms, "mineral resource" refers to any naturally occurring substance that can be extracted from the Earth for economic use, even if it doesn't strictly fit the definition of a mineral.
Second, look at Robert Bryce's chart below, which indicates that the government subsidizes solar energy via various agencies. This works out similar to how you get tax credits for purchasing an electric vehicle or installing solar panels on a home (in some cases)
Why am I showing you this?
Well, here is a small example of the US government “subsidizing” or promoting the use of silver, but here’s the paradox: Just because you are promoting demand doesn’t mean you are promoting policies that advocate for fair market price discovery.
Silver’s industrial use doesn’t do Silver any favors (necessarily all of the time) It’s complicated, it does and it doesn’t. You have to scroll through past articles to understand what we mean or go back through this article or below this very sentence the Hershey chocolate analogy I’ve written about dozens of time. If you and I owned Hershey’s chocolate we would root for low sugar and cocoa prices (because they are chief ingredients in chocolate) thus factory inputs. But what if you don’t have to wish or root or cheer for them but you can make it happen guaranteed? That is my position regarding Silver Users (large aerospace, military -industrial complex, etc. Industrialists of this scale often sit on banking board of directors and we all know bankers are mostly responsible for short selling paper versions of silver where a day of derivative trading can equal a YEAR OF WORLD SILVER PRODUCTION
These bullet points below come from Kevin Bambrough who was the founder Sprott Resources Money. Kevin wrote yesterday and this goes to how bankers have two incentives to short Silver.
1. They make money on the short trade.
2. They take their orders from their bosses who own large scale manufacturing plants (Silver industrial users) who benefit / profit from low silver prices (factory inputs) like we would if we owned Hersheys and could “manage” a way to rig low silver prices. Kevin writes:
”…Over the decade from 2010 to 2020, five of the world's largest banks faced significant fines for manipulating precious metals markets, yet these penalties were minimal compared to their overall profits:
JPMorgan Chase paid the largest fine of $920.2 million in 2020 for "spoofing" trades in precious metals markets, while earning approximately $250 billion in profits over the decade.
Bank of Nova Scotia was fined $127.4 million for futures manipulation against decade profits of roughly $85 billion.
Deutsche Bank paid $98 million for gold and silver price manipulation while generating about $40 billion in profits.
HSBC's $100 million fine for precious metals manipulation was a fraction of their $150 billion decade earnings.
Bank of America/Merrill Lynch paid $25 million for precious metals spoofing against approximately $170 billion in profits.
In total, these five institutions paid about $1.27 billion in fines while collectively earning around $695 billion in profits during this period, meaning the fines represented just 0.18% of their earnings “
Remember that Silver has only been an *industrial metal since Tesla defeated Edison in the Superbowl of AC vs DC, which, compared to the vast span of Silver’s monetary use, is just like 11:55 pm on the clock.
If stackers really want to see Silver price discovery, they will look for ways to support Silver’s use monetarily, and you will begin to see some States here in the US moving in that direction. There is also vast evidence of Silver’s monetary use among BRICS (or at least whispers for smaller transactions)
Silver monetized? Start looking in the direction of Idaho, Indiana, Tennessee, Missouri, Florida, and Texas. We are not giving up on some conversations we’ve had with Indigenous decision-makers either.
chart indicating Silver getting 300x more Federal subsidies than Nuclear at the tune of 4.1 Billion
Editors Note: Here at this newsletter we refer to Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act as the Inflation Amplification Act
* yes silver had some industrial uses prior to Tesla versus Edison (in medicine, photography, flatware, statues, vessels, jewelry) but the real industrial drainers are silver industrialists that favor silver for its superior conductivity, reflectivity, anti-corrosion, thermal properties, ductility and malleability which are PV, EV, Military, Aerospace, Electronics, SilverZinc batteries, et al
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