The most common pushback against the bullish silver thesis is: “Don’t worry, solar will just switch from silver to copper.” How plausible is that?
Alexander Campbell (ex Head of Commodities at Bridgewater) frames it this way:
🔻Demand destruction threshold
• He puts the “break-even / where demand destruction even begins” around $134/oz (not a price target, but the level where the squeeze starts to bite).
⏳ The bottleneck is time (not money)
• Rough math: ~300 factories worldwide, ~1.5 years to convert each to copper plating, and ~60 factories/year parallel capacity --> ~4 years minimum to reach 50% copper adoption.
💸 Even if economics scream “do it”…
• Around $125/oz, payback drops below 1 year, but “deciding tomorrow” still doesn’t compress the industrial timeline (physics/operations > incentives)
🛠️ Not plug-and-play
• Switching to copper isn’t a simple input swap; it requires process/design changes, manufacturing workflow changes, and retraining/qualification.
🔁 The mix effect (PERC → TOPCon → HJT)
• While copper is discussed, the tech mix shift can increase silver intensity on average (he cites ~13.5 mg/W in 2025 vs ~15.2 mg/W in 2030).
✅ Bottom line
Copper may be the long-term “end state”, but it’s unlikely to be an immediate kill switch. Silver can move faster than the PV supply chain can retool.
https://www.campbellramble.ai/p/10-silver-days-of-christmas
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