Credit: Mauro Cateb / CC-BY-SA 3.0

Silver has real industrial uses that transcend the microchips and mobile device technology that found popularity around the turn of the millennium. With the coming of the green tech era, silver finds more and more use cases where its inclusion makes the device far more efficient and better-performing.

Nanotechnology: A big part of the green technology movement is the notion of pure and toxin-free ingredients. In this way, silver is instrumental. The anti-oxidation property of silver plays a big role as an additive for the anti-oxidation property of the base metal.

Solar Panels: The whole solar cell apparatus wouldn’t work without silver or be precisely not as efficiently as it does with silver. Photovoltaic cells are the part of a solar panel that collects sunlight and turn that light into energy. The future of solar rests on silver.

Sliver-Coated Glass: Super-useful in warm climates where air conditioning costs can grow leaps and bounds without these glasses. Silver treated glass allows sunlight to be reflected about 20x more than untreated glass.

If you hold silver as an investment commodity, you should be in pretty good shape, considering all of the many silver uses in the green technology movement. Silver prices tend to rise and fall rather periodically as about other market factors. Still, as the green technology uses call for additional silver, prices will continue to rise.