Carol was recently featured in The Irish Times discussing the controversy that surrounds diamond mine fields.
Diamond mine fields
Jeweller Carol Clarke in Dublin, a respected gemmologist and Ireland’s first and only female member of the Institute of Registered Jewellery Valuers in London, is constantly asked about lab-grown diamonds and has strong views on the subject.
“I believe it takes about 250 kilowatt hours of electricity to grow a one carat diamond in these large factories – that’s the same amount of electricity that could power the average US household for nine full days. How is that ethical?” Ten million diamonds were grown in 2020 and production is only going to increase, she reckons. “We don’t know how long they will last. They may have the same hardness and colour as a natural diamond but how can they have the same atomic structure as one that has taken thousands of years to grow and form in the ground? As so many lab diamonds are being grown every year, the price is going to drop, and they will become worthless in the near future as more factories open up in China and India and pour them out. You need to be careful – I have had customers with items to be valued that they thought were natural diamonds but turned out to be lab-grown and worth a fraction of what they had paid.” Caveat emptor.
You can read the full article here: https://www.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/Fashion/march-miscellany-1.4826660