CEO LETTER: Bridging the Trust Gap to Close the Supply Gap
April 2026
Since writing my first letter to our stakeholders last year, Still Bright has continued to advance toward proving that better leveraging modern tools like vanadium electrochemistry allows for superior economics compared to the status quo. But as we’ve progressed technically, the world around us has reinforced a conviction I hold deeply: the copper supply crisis is, at its root, a trust crisis. The geological copper is there. The demand is undeniable. What’s missing is the environmental and social foundation required to bring new supply to market quickly.
In this letter, I want to address that trust gap directly, highlighting what’s driving it, why it matters for every stakeholder in the value chain, and how Still Bright designed to close it.
The Evidence Is Everywhere
Consider what the last twelve months have looked like for the global copper industry. In Peru, community protests shut down Hudbay’s Constancia mine for two weeks in late 2025, while informal miners blocked critical transport corridors serving multiple operations. Peru’s Ombudsman Office reports that roughly 42% of mining projects in the country face some form of community opposition. In Chile, workers at Capstone Copper’s Mantoverde mine launched a month-long strike in early 2026 over working conditions. And these are just the disruptions that made headlines.
Meanwhile, the consequences of broken trust continue to compound. In February 2025, a tailings dam at the Sino-Metals Leach facility in Zambia catastrophically failed, releasing approximately 50 million liters of toxic waste into the Kafue River, shutting off water supply to roughly 700,000 people and killing all life in its wake. Tailings failures in Indonesia and Bolivia in the same month added to the toll. These are not anomalies. They are the predictable result of an industry that has historically externalized its costs onto the communities and ecosystems closest to its operations.
Think of it like a bank account. Every tailings spill, every displaced community, every broken promise is a withdrawal. After decades of overdrafts, the account is empty and not refilling. Communities are no longer willing to extend credit to an industry that has repeatedly failed to repay it. And without that trust, even the most geologically promising deposits will remain locked in the ground.
Why the Trust Gap Is the Supply Gap
The numbers are stark. Copper demand is surging, with faster growth than even the first electrification, when we replaced whale oil with the light bulb. This is driven by the energy transition, the explosive build-out of AI data centers, and continued economic growth across developing economies. The IEA and others project that billions of pounds of new copper will be required over the coming decade. Yet even the most optimistic pipeline of planned mines will cover only a small fraction of this need.
Here is the critical link that is too often unspoken: copper production is not simply a function of geology or investment. Mines like Pebble and Resolution Copper in the United States, Las Bambas and Tia Maria in Peru, and Cobre Panama have been delayed or halted outright by community opposition. Peru’s copper output declined 12% in early 2025 largely due to social unrest. And these are not small projects. They represent tens of billions of dollars of investment and millions of tonnes of copper that the world urgently needs.
The pattern repeats because the underlying dynamic has not changed. The potential downfalls of copper sulfide processing manifest, creating real, measurable harm to local water, air, and land. Communities bear these costs while the economic benefits flow elsewhere. When people protest, they are not being unreasonable. They are responding rationally to a system that has failed them. Until the industry changes the system, no amount of corporate social responsibility spending will restore that trust.
A Technology Built to Regain Trust
This is precisely where Still Bright leads. Our RACER technology is not just a more efficient way to extract copper. It is a fundamentally different relationship between a mining operation and the community around it.
Our closed-loop hydrometallurgical process eliminates the need for traditional tailings storage facilities. This is crucial for regaining trust since these facilities represent the single largest source of catastrophic environmental failure in the mining industry. Our process eliminates the potential for acid mine drainage. It converts waste streams, including sulfides, into valuable co-products rather than liabilities. It operates at ambient conditions, meaning no smelter-like fugitive emissions and a fundamentally simpler permitting pathway.
If the old model is like burning a forest to create land for cattle grazing, in which one thing of value is extracted while leaving destruction behind, our approach is more like agroforestry: sustainably getting the initial value while increasing the value from lumber and other revenue streams that were previously lost. That is not just better engineering. It is the foundation for a new kind of partnership between mining companies, local communities, and the nations that hold copper resources.
When a community sees a processing operation that generates no acid runoff and creates local jobs built around clean technology, the conversation changes. The trust account begins to be replenished. And when trust is restored, the copper that the world needs can actually reach the market.
Join Us
We are entering a decisive period for both Still Bright and the copper industry. As we advance our pilot and prepare for on-site demonstrations, every step is designed to prove not only the economics of our system, but the viability of a trust-centered model for copper production. If this perspective resonates with you, I invite you to work with us. We are currently hiring. At Still Bright, we are building something that the industry has never had: a cost-effective way to produce copper that communities can actually welcome. The supply gap will only close when the trust gap does. Together, we can close both.
Randy Allen
Co-founder & CEO, Still Bright