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Gold/Mining/Energy : Silver prices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: goldsheet who wrote (3178)	12/19/2000 3:03:16 PM
From: The Vet	Respond to of 8010

> fabrication demand for silver in solders? While it is very hard to get hard figures, I would put the silver use in solder to rise to as much as 50 million oz but that would be price sensitive. At prices below $5 an oz that could easily be achieved but I suspect that at much higher price more substitution with tin and other alloys would occur. The push for lead free solder is directed more to worker safety and disposal concerns rather than direct safety issue to the consumers. Few people put electronic circuit boards in their mouth! However direct public health issues do exist. What most people have not taken into consideration in solder demand is a combination of two entirely different problems. The first is the failure of plastic piping in new home installation which has caused it to be outlawed in the building codes of many places. The second is the public perception that even the minute amount of lead in drinking water from the solder used in copper pipe plumbing may be harmful. As copper replaces plastic and silver solders replace lead solders the demand for all plumbing solder will rise and silver use will increase from this demand to equal or exceed the electronic use of lead free solder. The cost of a few ounces of silver in the total plumbing bill is easily absorbed and will be demanded by new home buyers once they realise that leaded solder has crept back into their lives in their water.

To: goldsheet who wrote (3178)	12/19/2000 5:18:04 PM
From: long-gone	Respond to of 8010

<<long gone once posted a number of 20,000 tonnes>> That was a 1998 published number, every year number of electronic assys. increases, but some years average size or number of solder joints decreases. I simply don't have any later figures, but 98 there was the problems in Russia & Japan. I'd bet money we used more in 2000 than 1998, but not willing to bet on 2001 usage.