Only about ten percent of all new gold produced goes into industrial applications, but even such a seemingly small amount can affect the available supply enough to drive up spot gold pricing.

Gold is one of the very best conductors of electricity available, in fact only silver and copper have better conductivity and among the three, gold has the best resistance to corrosion.  Gold is much too expensive to be used in everyday electrical applications, but in instances where both high conductivity and high resistance to corrosion are a necessity, gold is often the obvious choice.  There are a number of electrical, audio and electronic applications in which gold is either regularly used as a contact or as a plating to reduce the risk of failure in a connection.

The unique properties of this precious metal also result in its ability to be used in reflective applications like astronaut equipment and in some satellites.  Some automobile manufacturers use gold to dissipate heat in engines and this precious metal can also be a highly effective de-icer for airplane windshields.

Though many uses for gold are primarily for decoration or for a show of status, the valuable precious metal does have plenty of attributes that make it incredibly versatile for industrial and scientific applications.  Imminent increases in spot gold pricing as supplies diminish will most likely not have an effect on these industrial uses.  In most cases only small quantities of gold are used per application, so the overall price of the project probably wouldn’t be too greatly affected, and in most situations where gold is used reliability and security far outweigh the price of raw materials.

For centuries, gold has been a viable and popular source of currency and one of the most popular and most widely used resources for fine jewelry.  Many of the industrial uses for gold are brand new compared to the more “traditional” uses and as further experimentation takes place it’s likely that even more uses for this versatile precious metal will be discovered.

Heavy demands were already being put on the gold supply by the fine jewelry industry and there is no sign at all of that slowing down.  With each day that passes and each new industrial, electrical or scientific uses that is uncovered the available supply of gold will be diminished even further.  This is good news for investors who are considering diversifying their portfolio by sinking some funds into gold and even better news for investors who already have as the ever increasing demand on the gold supply will most certainly work to drive up spot gold pricing.