The Silver Standard

How fusion energy, superconductor supply chains, and an old-fashioned resource grab are reshaping the global order

The Future of Energy Amid Geopolitical Struggle

by Stephen Horton

I. The Donroe Doctrine

On the morning of January 3rd, 2026, American special forces extracted Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro from Caracas. By nightfall, he was in a Manhattan holding cell facing drug trafficking charges. The operation, dubbed Absolute Resolve, was swift, precise, and sent shockwaves through capitals from Beijing to Brussels. President Donald Trump, speaking from Mar-a-Lago the following day, offered no apologies. “American dominance in the Western Hemisphere will never be questioned again,” he declared, christening his approach the “Donroe Doctrine” — a portmanteau he borrowed from the New York Post but adopted with characteristic enthusiasm.

The Venezuela raid was merely the opening act. In November 2025, Trump’s National Security Strategy had already laid the groundwork, declaring that America “must be preeminent in the Western Hemisphere as a condition of our security and prosperity” and announcing a “Trump Corollary” to the 1823 Monroe Doctrine. What followed was a systematic effort to secure American access to critical resources — from Greenland’s rare earths to Panama’s canal to Venezuela’s oil reserves, the largest on Earth.

But the Venezuela operation was not simply about oil, nor even about removing a Chinese-friendly regime from America’s backyard. It was one thread in a far more intricate tapestry: the re-industrialization of American energy infrastructure, the race for fusion power, the control of superconductor supply chains, and — lurking beneath it all — a quiet repositioning in the silver market that may prove the most consequential financial maneuver of the decade.

“The United States must never be dependent on any outside power for core components — from raw materials to parts to finished products — necessary to the nation’s defense or economy.” — 2025 National Security Strategy

II. The Fusion Gambit

In December 2025, Trump Media & Technology Group announced a $6 billion all-stock merger with TAE Technologies, a California-based fusion energy company that had spent 25 years and $1.3 billion in private capital chasing the dream of commercially viable nuclear fusion. The deal, which provides TAE with $300 million in immediate cash and another $100 million before mid-2026, would create one of the first publicly traded fusion companies in history.

The merger raised eyebrows in financial circles — what, exactly, did a social media company have to offer a fusion energy startup? The answer, as with so much in the Trump era, lies not in synergies but in access. TAE’s Field-Reversed Configuration (FRC) approach to fusion had shown remarkable progress. In April 2025, the company announced a breakthrough that reduced reactor complexity and cost by up to 50%, allowing it to skip an entire generation of prototype machines and move directly toward its first commercial power plant, targeted for the early 2030s.

What TAE lacked was political capital. The Department of Energy had been reducing funding for ITER, the multinational fusion project in France, while increasing support for private fusion ventures. The FY2026 budget request cut ITER funding by $45 million while expanding the Private Facilities Research program. The message was clear: American fusion dollars would flow to American companies.

The TMTG merger offered TAE something more valuable than capital: a direct line to the Oval Office, and with it, access to the emerging playbook for critical mineral deals. In July 2025, the Department of Defense had announced a “transformational” partnership with MP Materials, the rare earth mining company. The structure was unprecedented: DOD would take a 15% equity stake, guarantee purchases of 7,000 metric tons of rare earth magnets annually for ten years, and — crucially — establish a price floor of $110 per kilogram for neodymium-praseodymium products, more than double the market rate of $51 per kilogram.

JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs provided $1 billion in financing for MP Materials’ new magnet manufacturing facility. Apple invested $500 million. The company raised another $650 million through a secondary offering. A template had been established: government equity, above-market price guarantees, and Wall Street financing, all wrapped in the flag of national security.

TAE, through its new political connections, was positioning itself for similar treatment. And unlike its tokamak rivals — Commonwealth Fusion Systems, Energy Singularity, and the various ITER partners — TAE’s FRC design required far fewer superconducting magnets, reducing its dependence on the most constrained link in the fusion supply chain.

III. The REBCO Bottleneck

To understand why TAE’s approach matters, one must understand the physics and economics of superconductors. The tokamak design — the donut-shaped reactor that has dominated fusion research for decades — requires massive arrays of superconducting magnets to confine plasma at temperatures exceeding 100 million degrees Celsius. These magnets are made from High-Temperature Superconductor (HTS) tape, specifically a material called REBCO: Rare Earth Barium Copper Oxide.

REBCO tape is manufactured through an extraordinarily complex process. A metal substrate, typically Hastelloy, is coated with buffer layers using Ion Beam Assisted Deposition (IBAD) or Pulsed Laser Deposition (PLD) at vacuum pressures of 10⁻⁹ Torr — one-trillionth of atmospheric pressure. The superconducting layer itself is only 1-3 micrometers thick, topped with silver and copper stabilizers. The entire process requires extreme precision; grain boundaries must align within a few degrees for the material to carry current without resistance.

The market for HTS wire was valued at approximately $142 million in 2025. By 2035, analysts project it will exceed $1.2 billion — a compound annual growth rate approaching 25%. The driver is not only fusion but also Superconducting Fault Current Limiters (SFCLs), grid-scale cables for urban power distribution, and the cryogenic infrastructure required for quantum computing.

The supply chain is dominated by a handful of players: SuperPower (a subsidiary of Japan’s Furukawa Electric), American Superconductor (AMSC), Fujikura, Bruker, and — increasingly — Shanghai Superconductor Technology. China has been scaling production aggressively, driven by state-backed fusion programs at the Hefei Institutes of Physical Science and Tsinghua University. In June 2024, Energy Singularity’s HH70 tokamak achieved a 21.7 Tesla magnetic field using entirely Chinese-manufactured HTS magnets, setting a world record.

For tokamak-based fusion, REBCO tape represents both the critical enabler and the critical vulnerability. Commonwealth Fusion Systems’ SPARC reactor, scheduled for operation in late 2026 or early 2027, requires approximately 20 Tesla magnets wrapped with thousands of kilometers of HTS tape. Across the global fusion industry, estimates suggest demand could reach 300,000 kilometers of tape by 2035. Current production capacity falls far short.

TAE’s FRC design sidesteps this bottleneck. The Field-Reversed Configuration generates its own magnetic field through plasma self-organization, requiring only modest external magnets for stability and shaping. The company’s April 2025 breakthrough — achieving stable FRC plasma formation using only Neutral Beam Injection — further simplified the design, eliminating the need for complex theta-pinch startup systems.

In the language of supply chains, TAE has reduced its exposure to the most constrained input. In the language of geopolitics, it has reduced its vulnerability to Chinese competition in superconductor manufacturing. The Trump administration, waging economic war on multiple fronts, found a fusion partner whose technology aligned with its strategic objectives.

IV. Grid Wars

But fusion remains, as it has for seven decades, a technology of the future. The more immediate opportunity lies in the grid infrastructure that will deliver fusion power — or any power — to end users. Here, superconductors are already finding commercial application.

Superconducting Fault Current Limiters protect electrical grids from catastrophic short circuits. When fault current exceeds safe levels, the superconducting material “quenches,” transitioning from zero resistance to high resistance and limiting the current flow. The global SFCL market, valued at $4.5 billion in 2024, is projected to reach nearly $8 billion by 2031. Nexans, the French cable manufacturer, has emerged as the global leader, deploying superconducting systems for railways, data centers, and urban grid infrastructure.

The demand drivers are familiar: renewable energy integration requires protection against the intermittent surges that solar and wind generation impose on grids. Data centers, consuming an ever-larger share of global electricity to power AI workloads, require bulletproof power supplies. Electric vehicle charging infrastructure is creating new load patterns that existing grids were never designed to handle. Aging infrastructure across the developed world needs replacement.

Superconducting cables offer another advantage: density. A superconducting cable system can transmit power through a corridor only one meter wide, compared to the massive rights-of-way required for conventional high-voltage transmission. For urban utilities facing impossible constraints on space and public opposition to overhead lines, superconductors offer a path forward.

The American grid, in particular, faces a crisis of capacity. Data center electricity consumption has increased 53-fold since 2000, from 0.93 gigawatts to nearly 50 gigawatts in 2025. The International Energy Agency projects data centers will consume 2-3% of global electricity by 2030, up from 1% in 2021. Much of this growth is concentrated in a handful of regions — Northern Virginia, Texas, the Southwest — where grid infrastructure is already strained.

V. The Silver Thread

And here, at last, we arrive at silver — the metal that ties everything together.

Silver possesses the highest electrical conductivity of any element: 63.01 million siemens per meter, approximately 5% better than copper. It also has the highest thermal conductivity of any metal: 429 watts per meter-kelvin. These properties make it irreplaceable in applications where efficiency and heat dissipation are paramount.

In solar photovoltaics, silver paste creates the conductive pathways that capture and transport electricity from silicon wafers. Each solar panel contains 15-25 grams of silver. The industry consumed 197 million ounces in 2024, representing 29% of total industrial silver demand — up from just 11% a decade earlier. Research from Ghent University projects that by 2030, the PV industry alone may require 14,000 tonnes of silver annually, against total global supply of only 34,000 tonnes. Solar could consume 40% of all silver produced.

In electric vehicles, silver appears in battery management systems, power electronics, charging infrastructure, and electrical contacts. A battery-electric vehicle uses 25-50 grams of silver — 67-79% more than an internal combustion vehicle. As EV production scales, the Silver Institute projects that electric vehicles will overtake traditional cars as the primary source of automotive silver demand by 2027.

In data centers, silver-plated connectors, silver-alloy contacts in switchgear, and silver-based thermal interface materials are essential to managing the extreme power densities of AI hardware. Hyperscale data centers consume an estimated 8-12 million ounces of silver annually. As AI workloads proliferate, this figure is rising rapidly.

And in electrical grid infrastructure — including the superconducting systems we have discussed — silver is ubiquitous. Silver-copper alloys dominate high-current switching applications. Silver-nickel contacts are standard in relays. Silver-tungsten alloys handle arc erosion in circuit breakers. Where HTS cables and SFCLs interface with conventional grid equipment, silver contacts provide the connection.

The REBCO tape at the heart of superconducting systems itself contains a silver cap layer, providing protection and electrical stabilization for the ceramic superconductor beneath. Even fusion reactors, regardless of design, will require silver in their grid interconnection systems, their control electronics, their power conversion equipment.

By 2030, supply may meet only 62-70% of demand. Reducing silver consumption in all applications, identifying suitable substitutes, and expanding secondary production are essential to mitigate supply risks. — Ghent University / Engie Laborelec, Resources, Conservation and Recycling, August 2025

Silver is, in short, the connective tissue of the energy transition. It appears everywhere that electricity must flow efficiently, heat must dissipate quickly, and reliability cannot be compromised. Unlike copper, which can be mined in response to price signals, 72% of silver production comes as a byproduct of copper, lead, and zinc mining. Silver supply is structurally inelastic: it cannot scale to meet demand because its extraction depends on demand for other metals.

The result has been four consecutive years of global supply deficits, totaling 678 million ounces — roughly ten months of mine production. In 2025, silver prices surged 147%, breaking a decade-long ceiling at $30 per ounce and reaching $72 by year’s end. Analysts at Metals Focus project prices could breach $60 by late 2026; some see $100 as plausible if deficits persist.

In November 2025, the U.S. Geological Survey quietly added silver to the official list of critical minerals, alongside copper, uranium, and metallurgical coal.

VI. The Morgan Maneuver

Against this backdrop, movements in the silver futures market have drawn intense scrutiny.

JP Morgan has long dominated precious metals trading on the COMEX exchange. In 2020, the bank paid $920 million to settle charges of “spoofing” — placing orders with no intention of executing them to manipulate prices. Two of its traders were convicted and sentenced to prison. Despite these penalties, the bank remained a dominant force, with its precious metals derivatives position reaching $323.5 billion in the first quarter of 2025, representing 61% of all precious metals derivatives held by reporting U.S. banks.

What happened next is disputed, but the circumstantial evidence is striking. Between June and October 2025, according to market analysts who track COMEX positioning data, U.S. banks shifted from their historically net-short position in silver to net-long for the first time on record. Some observers claim JP Morgan specifically sold off a 200-million-ounce short position and accumulated a 750-million-ounce physical long position — the largest stockpile in history, equivalent to nearly a year’s global mine production.

These claims cannot be verified. The CFTC does not report individual bank positions, and no bank will publicly disclose its trading strategy. “All the reports you’ve seen regarding JP Morgan closing their short position in silver are nothing but speculation,” cautioned one analyst at Sprott Money. “No one knows for certain if any one bank is buying or selling.”

What can be verified is this: U.S. banks, in aggregate, are now net-long silver for the first time in recent memory. And the timing coincides precisely with silver’s addition to the critical minerals list, with the surge in industrial demand, and with the administration’s broader strategy of securing American access to essential materials.

VII. The Tennessee Connection

In mid-December, as financial markets focused on the Fed’s liquidity operations, another announcement slipped through with minimal coverage. Korea Zinc, the South Korean metal processor, revealed that the U.S. federal government would invest in a new $7.4 billion zinc refinery in Tennessee. The Department of Defense would hold an equity stake.

The Tennessee facility follows the MP Materials template: strategic government investment in domestic mineral processing capacity, designed to reduce dependence on foreign supply chains. But zinc is not merely zinc. Korea Zinc is the world’s largest producer of refined zinc — and also one of the world’s largest refiners of silver, gold, and other precious metals recovered as byproducts of zinc and lead processing.

The Tennessee refinery, in other words, represents not only zinc security but silver security. A domestic facility capable of processing complex ores and recovering precious metal byproducts would reduce American dependence on the foreign smelters that currently process much of the world’s silver-bearing concentrate.

VIII. From Caracas to Beijing

Venezuela’s oil reserves — the largest on Earth — had been a Chinese strategic asset for years. Beijing had invested billions in Venezuelan oil infrastructure, accepting crude as repayment for loans that kept the Maduro regime afloat. Russia and Iran maintained similar arrangements, creating what the Trump administration characterized as “malign foreign activity” in America’s hemisphere.

The capture of Maduro served multiple purposes. It removed a hostile regime. It sent a message to other Latin American governments that might consider aligning with America’s adversaries. And it positioned the United States to secure preferential access to Venezuelan oil — or, more precisely, to deny that access to China.

The broader context is a struggle for resource supremacy that extends far beyond oil. China controls 60-70% of rare earth processing. It dominates battery manufacturing, solar panel production, and increasingly, superconductor fabrication. Its Belt and Road Initiative has secured access to critical minerals across Africa, South America, and Central Asia. Its fusion program, backed by the full resources of the state, is advancing rapidly.

ITER, the international fusion project in France, becomes a casualty of this logic. American funding has been reduced; American interest has waned. The project, which includes China and Russia among its partners, no longer aligns with an administration determined to decouple from rivals wherever possible. Private American fusion — TAE, CFS, Helion — receives priority instead.

IX. Defending Dollar Dominance

There is, finally, a monetary dimension to these maneuvers. The petrodollar system — under which global oil trade is denominated in U.S. dollars, supporting demand for dollar-denominated assets and American borrowing at preferential rates — has faced mounting challenges. China has pushed for yuan-denominated oil contracts. Saudi Arabia has flirted with alternatives. Russia, under sanctions, has sought to circumvent dollar-based systems entirely.

But the deeper defense of dollar dominance may lie in the metals markets. If the energy transition reduces global dependence on oil, the petrodollar system loses its anchor. What replaces it? A new commodity basket, perhaps — one that includes the critical minerals essential to modern technology: rare earths, lithium, cobalt, and silver.

An America that dominates critical mineral supply chains, or at least maintains secure access to them, can perpetuate dollar hegemony even as oil recedes in importance. The investments in MP Materials, Korea Zinc, and domestic processing capacity are not merely industrial policy. They are monetary policy by other means.

X. The Convergence

Pull back, and the pieces form a coherent picture.

The energy transition creates demand for materials that were previously niche: rare earths for magnets, lithium for batteries, cobalt for cathodes, silver for everything that conducts electricity or dissipates heat. These materials are more geographically concentrated, more supply-constrained, and more strategically significant than oil ever was.

Fusion energy, if achieved, promises abundant clean power — but also requires its own supply chains: superconductors for tokamaks, neutral beam systems for FRC designs, cryogenics for all of them, and silver at every point where their output connects to the grid.

Silver sits at the center of all of it. Solar needs silver paste. EVs need silver contacts. Data centers need silver thermal interfaces. Grids need silver switching components. Superconductors need silver stabilization layers. No other material offers comparable conductivity; no substitute has emerged despite decades of research.

And the silver market, quietly but unmistakably, has repriced to reflect this new reality.

XI. The Road Ahead

What happens next depends on variables that no analyst can fully predict. Will TAE achieve net energy generation before decade’s end? Will tokamak rivals prove REBCO supply chains can scale? Will silver substitution finally succeed at scale, or will shortages force a fundamental repricing of everything that depends on the metal’s conductivity?

For investors, the calculus is complex. Silver offers exposure to the energy transition regardless of which specific technologies prevail; it is the “everything” play in a world where everything requires electricity. Rare earth magnets offer exposure to EVs, wind power, and defense applications. Superconductor manufacturers offer leverage to grid modernization and fusion. TAE, through its TMTG connection, offers a direct bet on political access translating into commercial success.

The risks are substantial. Policy could shift. Technologies could disappoint. Financial crisis could derail the whole enterprise. China could escalate rather than retreat. The transition could prove slower, more expensive, and more fraught with setbacks than optimists project.

But the direction of travel is clear. Energy systems are being rebuilt. Supply chains are being reoriented. Power — political, economic, technological — is being redistributed. Those who understand the convergence, who see how fusion and superconductors and grid infrastructure and critical minerals and monetary policy all connect, will be positioned to navigate what comes next.

The silver standard is not a monetary system. It is a material reality. And in a world where the energy transition requires more silver than the earth can readily supply, those who control access to the metal control the future.

Appendix: Key Supply Chain Exposures

Tier 1: Highest Conviction

Physical Silver & Silver Miners: Critical mineral designation, convergent demand from solar/EV/AI/grid, structurally constrained supply (72% byproduct), fifth consecutive year of deficit. Key equities: First Majestic (AG), Pan American Silver (PAAS), Sprott Physical Silver Trust (PSLV).

MP Materials (MP): DOD 15% equity stake, 10-year price guarantee at $110/kg (2x market), JPM/Goldman $1B financing.

Tier 2: Grid Infrastructure (Fusion-Agnostic)

American Superconductor (AMSC): Leading U.S. HTS manufacturer, SFCL applications, defense grid hardening.

Nexans: Global leader in superconducting cables and SFCLs. European exposure but dominant market position.

Chart Industries (GTLS): Cryogenic equipment for LNG, industrial gases, increasingly superconductor cooling applications.

Tier 3: Technology-Specific

Trump Media/TAE (DJT): Speculative. Political access play rather than supply chain capture. FRC approach reduces HTS dependency vs. tokamaks.

REBCO/HTS Tape Manufacturers: SuperPower (Furukawa subsidiary), Fujikura, Bruker. Essential if tokamak fusion prevails over FRC.

Market Size Projections

HTS Wire: $142M (2025) → $1.2B+ (2035), CAGR ~25%
SFCL: $4.5B (2024) → $8B (2031), CAGR ~8.5%
Cryocoolers: $1.1B (2024) → $1.6B (2032), CAGR ~6%
Silver Industrial Demand: 680M oz (2024), projected structural deficit through 2030+

Key Risks

Policy discontinuity (administration change). Chinese export controls on rare earths/superconductor materials. Technical failure in fusion programs. Financial crisis derailing liquidity. Silver substitution breakthrough in solar/electronics. Geopolitical backlash to Donroe Doctrine undermining hemispheric cooperation.