As seen on Kitco, silver’s many uses continue to entice investors with possibilities of price gains from more corners than in the case of gold. In a recent report, John Feeney, business development manager at Guardian Vaults, shared his view of why silver has everything going for it in the current landscape.

Despite a recently-sprung grassroots movement that has turned silver into Main Street’s favored investment, silver has yet to really take off from its $24 support level. And while many correctly attribute this to a disconnect between the paper and physical market, Feeney expects silver’s broad-based demand sources to eventually be reflected in rising prices.

Feeney believes silver will attract more and more investors as they wake up to our economic reality. Despite optimistic claims, the Federal Reserve is in no position to tighten monetary policy or normalize interest rates. Because the modern global economy relies on debt, interest rates must be kept extremely low to avoid a collapse. More money must be printed. This is the same investment case that has many excited for gold moving forward.

However, the case for silver extends far past that. Whereas gold’s detractors like to lament how the metal is a throwback, silver is as futuristic of an investment as one can hope for (despite being around for centuries). And, unlike other futuristic investments, it doesn’t carry a massive amount of risk.

Why futuristic? Well, there are three huge and growing sources of demand: photovoltaics for solar panels, superpowered next-generation batteries and electrical vehicles.

Feeney refers to data from the World Silver Institute, which projects that silver usage in electric vehicles is expected to grow to 90 million ounces by 2025, with demand expected to grow to more than 100,000 ounces by 2030. Whether one wants to fully embrace these forecasts or not, the writing is on the wall in regards to EVs, manufacturing and silver supply.

Partly because of government incentives and partly because of customer interest, demand for EVs has risen exponentially, and is only expected to continue to climb. Manufacturers have long used “thrifting,” a way of spreading out silver as much as possible, in order to cut back costs. Yet these methods are nearing their natural point of exhaustion (at a certain point you just can’t become more efficient). At this point there will be no alternative but to use the necessary silver to manufacture the device, regardless of cost.

On the flip side, silver has one of the more complicated supply pictures, with much of it coming as a byproduct of mining other metals. Therefore, the physical silver market is even worse equipped to deal with a sudden increase in demand than the gold market. Because of all of this, Feeney makes a point of embracing silver’s volatile bouts and encourages investors to buy the dip in what is looking like a very promising investment.