Leeb - Supply Crunch To Send Silver Into The Stratosphere

Original Source

 

Today acclaimed money manager Stephen Leeb told King World News, “... it will be very difficult going forward to acquire large amounts of silver.”  Leeb, who is Chairman of Leeb Capital Management, also said that because of this, “... the price of silver is literally going into the stratosphere.”

Here is what Leeb had to say: “This is going to be very important for the silver market going forward, Eric.  As an example, photovoltaics is a tremendous way to generate electricity from the sun, but it uses a large amount of silver.  The major difference between photovoltaics and other ways of generating energy from the sun, is that the other methods require a great deal of water.”

Stephen Leeb continues:

“One of the methods being used to garner energy from the sun requires six to seven times more water than nuclear, and nuclear already requires tremendous amounts of water.  The point I am trying to make is that photovoltaics requires a bare minimum of water and in some cases no water.

Water, which is becoming much more of a concern in today’s world, is going to be critical going forward in terms of supplies....

“Also, if you look at fracking, you are not going to be doing fracking unless you have a lot of water.  And you are not going to be running a lot of nuclear power unless you have a lot of water.  So water becomes a key constraint.

So the fact that photovoltaics doesn’t use any water is utterly critical.  If we are going to build out infrastructure, and use the sun as a major producer of electricity, you have to put photovoltaics at the top of that list.  In fact, the growth rate of photovoltaics has been exponential over the past few years.

The growth of this industry strongly suggests that silver is going to play a critical role, and a much larger role than previously assumed in the whole energy equation.  I’m talking about silver as an industrial metal.  The problem going forward is how to connect the dots between how much silver we produce and how much we are going to need for energy and electricity production, particularly in China. 

So silver has two drivers going forward.  One is the monetary aspect because silver is money.  But the other is the industrial component, and the demand for silver to cultivate energy is going to skyrocket.  Later on, people will not believe you could buy silver in the $20s.  It’s a gift right now at $29. 

I think it will be very difficult going forward to acquire large amounts of physical silver.  Countries will have a very hard time picking up the necessary silver they will need for all of the demands.  When you couple in the investment boom, that is still in front of us, that means the price of silver is literally going into the stratosphere. 

The Chinese know this and that is why they are buying so much physical silver, as well as gold.  I have said to many times that we are going to have a mania in the junior mining shares, but we are also going to have a mania in the price of physical silver.”