Bloomberg — Copper & Silver Prices Suggest Gains For Renewables & EVs

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Most of us don’t spend a lot of time thinking about the price of commodities like copper and silver. Fortunately, Bloomberg employs people who are paid to think about such things. We recently did a story about how financial markets are already moving investments away from fossil fuels and into renewables.

On December 30, 2025, Bloomberg‘s David Fickling peered into his crystal ball and wrote, “The hottest metals as the year ends are the ones most associated with mass electrification, such as silver and copper, which are indispensable for electrical systems. Silver and copper prices are surging due to demand from the solar industry, electric vehicles, AI chips, and stagnating supply from mines. Commodity markets are suggesting that fossil fuel producers’ bet on inducing demand has not worked, with US crude futures, Asian import LNG prices, and Australian export coal prices currently at or near five-year lows.”

Copper & Silver Prices Rise

In the unkindest cut of all, he called the whole “energy dominance” schtick promoted by the lame duck president of the United States a “fossil fuel fantasy.” He reports that on December 29, the price of silver hit “$80 a troy ounce for the first time in history … capping a rise of 18 percent over the past week. Copper also hit a record, with a 6.3 percent gain taking it as high as $5.92 a pound.”

Those two metals are an indispensable component of all electrical systems, Fickling says. “Every wire, cable, motor, and motherboard in your house contains copper, the best reasonably affordable electrical conductor. Many of them also carry a smaller amount of silver, the most effective conductor of all but one whose high prices typically confine it to thin films printed onto key contact points.”

Solar panel manufacturing uses about 20 percent of the world’s supply of silver, which is a vital link in the process of converting the energy of the sun into electricity. Electric vehicles also rely on silver and copper. Each EV contains about 70 percent more silver and three times more copper than a traditional vehicle powered by an internal combustion engine.

All those computer chips that are so essential to the rise of artificial intelligence are also pushing up the demand for silver and copper at a time when production of the metals is essentially flat.

Economics 101

Higher demand with no increase in supply translates into higher prices. That’s economics 101. For the past decade, those of us who celebrate the “electrify everything” ideas of Tony Seba and Mark Jacobson have been focused on the price of lithium — the stuff that’s most notable for making the batteries for electric cars and energy storage systems possible. We watched as it soared to new record prices, then crashed as the supply chain disruptions caused by the pandemic eased.

What will it take to keep silver and copper prices from following a similar trajectory? Once again, economic theory has the answer — more supply. But as dedicated stewards of the Earth, that puts renewable energy and EV advocates in a bind. Copper mines have a negative impact on the environment, starting with their sheer size.

On average, 100 tons of material must be mined for every ton of copper recovered. According to Federal Metals of Canada, the rocks that are removed may contain radioactive substances and other toxic chemicals that get released into the atmosphere during the mining process. That air pollution can harm people’s skin, eyes, and lungs, making breathing difficult. Groundwater pollution near copper mines is also a common problem. Federal Metals says it takes up to 90 percent less energy to recycle copper than it does to mine more.

Making Fossil Fuels Redundant

Fickling suggests electrification is making coal, oil, and methane redundant in many places around the world — although, fossil fuels are not going away any time soon. Thermal generation from burning coal still produces about as much electricity as renewables do. Making electricity by burning methane is on the rise in the US, Saudi Arabia, and Iran thanks in part to the number of new data centers being built. But the decline of fossil fuel prices on commodities markets suggests electrification is the future and fossil fuels are the past.

US crude futures fell below $55 a barrel on December 16, which was very close to their lowest level in more than five years. In Asia, the going price for imported LNG and coal are also near 5-year lows.

The Energy Dominance Scam

“Fossil fuel producers made a bet with the world in 2025: Given sufficient supply and favorable political tailwinds, they’d be able to induce demand even in the face of cheaper, cleaner renewables and electrification,” Fickling says.

“OPEC opened the spigots and pushed output from the cartel to its highest level since the start of 2023. LNG producers in the US signed off on a record volume of new export projects, wagering that foreign buyers will mop up an excess of domestic gas. Chinese coal output hit a fresh record, with a 1.4% increase relative to a year earlier.”

However, it’s not playing out as hoped. Too much fossil fuel is being produced, it’s sitting in storage, and costs are plunging. Like during COVID-19, even oil tankers are piling up on the ocean. In fact, there haven’t been so many out on the water since April 2020. The same sort of thing is happening with different fossil fuels.

The Politics Of Energy

Fossil fuel companies control governments around the world. Oil and gas companies control policy in Russia, Saudi Arabia, and the United States. Coal companies have strong influence over India, Indonesia, and China.

Meanwhile, though, the world wants more and more renewable energy and electric vehicles, which means more demand for copper, silver, and other minerals. Which means higher prices. Perhaps that will also mean shifting political influence over time, but fossil fuel companies still have more control over the pens of politicians.

A $1 Billion Bribe

In 2024, the Republican presidential candidate demanded the fossil fuel industry do something extraordinary. He exhorted them to donate $1 billion to his election campaign. In return, he would clear a path for them to realize their most cherished dreams — especially new LNG export facilities in the Gulf of Mexico. They wound up only donating about half that amount, but got their full reward nonetheless.

On Inauguration Day, the executive orders started flying, including one that declared the US was experiencing an “energy emergency” and pledged to solve it by forcing other countries to buy American LNG. Fickling writes that it took less than a year for the wheels to come off the “energy dominance” fiction. “The petrostates that dominated the 20th century have had their day. The future is electric,” he writes.

A Clean Supply Chain For Clean Energy

The challenge now is to avoid polluting the Earth with the detritus of electrification the way the fossil fuel companies have done with the residue of their drilling and fracking activities. Renewable energy advocates must not dismiss concerns about recycling old solar panels and wind turbine blades. For 100 years, the fossil fuel crowd has ignored the damage they have caused, but we who carry the torch for renewables have to do better.

Fortunately, companies like Redwood Materials are finding financial success recapturing the raw materials inside lithium-ion batteries. Other companies are developing ways of recycling solar panels and wind turbine blades. For the journey toward full electrification to be successful, it must find solutions for its waste disposal needs — a topic that fossil fuel companies and plastics manufacturers have studiously ignored in their quest for profits.

The Earth demands we do better, so we don’t substitute one polluting source of energy for another. If our goal is truly “clean energy,” that implies best environmental practices will be used at all levels, beginning with the extraction process that is vital to new sources of copper and silver.