Diamonds are among nature’s most precious and beautiful creations. Usually, diamonds are formed when carbon deposits deep within the earth are subject to high temperature and pressure. Then these diamonds are mined by miners working in difficult conditions.
But now one diamond company is growing sustainable diamonds from carbon sucked straight out of the air
Sustainable diamonds are manufactured by Aether Diamonds, a startup founded in 2018.
Environmentally Friendly
According to Aether, they are not only manufacturing diamonds using clean energy but are also pulling an additional 20 metric tons of CO2 out of the atmosphere per carat it produces. Moreover, carbon dioxide is extracted using a mix of direct air capture and carbon removal methods like long-term carbon sequestration. They claim that this could offset the average American’s carbon footprint by 1.25 years.
As a result, this innovation could help in the fight against climate change and also in preventing the violation of human rights in diamond mining.
Last year, the company produced “hundreds of carats” of diamonds and has plans to produce thousands of carats in 2022
For manufacturing the diamond, the company buys carbon dioxide from the Climeworks facility in Switzerland. The whole manufacturing process of these diamonds is powered solely by carbon-free sources like solar and nuclear.
Grown diamonds are then shipped to Surat, India for cutting and polishing. After that, these are sent back to New York City’s diamond district for sale.
