Blood diamonds

Good question. Since the industrial stuff is made from low grade diamonds you'd wonder if it was worth the effort to disguise the origin of such low value material. Since any diamond mining operation presumably produces more low grade material than high grade there might be enough volume to be worthwhile. Since much of the diamond tools are coming from China these days I expect the raw materials are from China as well. Probably more of an issue with working conditions and mine safety than an issue of blood diamonds. All assumptions though, don't know about any actual statistics.

Pete C.

Yes, diamonds are just diamonds -- and it's still an appallingly secretive trade.

Blood diamonds have never been a big part of the total diamond market to begin with (maybe 5%) and the issue with them is the effect that they have on their local production area, not their influence in the market as a whole.

As the industrial abrasive market is also mostly supplied by synthetic diamonds (dirt cheap so long as tiny ones are all you need), then any natural diamonds are already a smallish fraction and blood diamonds even less of it. Also the cheap end of the abrasives market uses polycrystalline diamonds rather than longer-lasting monocrystals (why it's worth getting decent diamond hones, not the cheap Chinese ones). These polycrystallines are (AFAIK) entirely synthetic.

So worry about blood diamonds, but it's an issue to address through the politics and the initial stages of the supply chain, not the consumption of low-grade industrial diamonds. In terms of people killed in Congo, your cellphone probably killed more than your bench stone -- look at the feuding over coltan (tantalum ore, used for making miniature capacitors).

I haven't heard of any wars, riots or ethnic cleansing in Switzerland recently...

I thought that much of the industrial arasives were byproducts of jewelry industry, discards and grinding dust etc.

They just profit off it. Nazi gold. Karl

Pete C. wrote:

Ah, and they are drilling the Gotthard-tunnel to find diamonds.

Nick

Canada mines some fantastic diamonds in the North West Territories, projected to make up for about 6% of the world's production.

Robin

Oh, yeah! No doubt the'd much rather be cracking rocks with a pick axe in the hot sun that sitting in an air conditioned lab turning knobs on a CVD reactor!

Jon

Maybe man made Ruby or Garnet. Martin H. Eastburn @ home at Lions' Lair with our computer lionslair at consolidated dot net TSRA, Life; NRA LOH & Endowment Member, Golden Eagle, Patriot"s Medal. NRA Second Amendment Task Force Charter Founder IHMSA and NRA Metallic Silhouette maker & member.

Ignoramus22865 wrote: