
Biggest Diamond in More Than a Century Unearthed in Botswana - ocjo
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-11-19/biggest-diamond-in-more-than-a-century-discovered-in-botswana
======
lcswi
Yay, this will bring so much wealth to the people of Botswana!

~~~
jacquesm
Right you are...

The people of Botswana don't even rate a mention in the article, they're
likely not going to see a single dime of the proceeds which will be in the
many tens of millions of US$.

~~~
Hasknewbie
Botswana is an upper-middle-income economy with a freer press and lower
corruption than a number of European countries. Their level of corruption is
slightly worse than that of France, and way better than most South or East
European country (source:
[https://www.transparency.org/country/#BWA](https://www.transparency.org/country/#BWA)
;
[http://www.heritage.org/index/country/botswana](http://www.heritage.org/index/country/botswana)).

Also, they are one of the largest producers of rough diamonds in the world, so
a single stone may be a big deal for the company extracting it, but it means
hardly anything to the country.

Africa has some insane level of corruption and poverty, but there are some
exceptions (namely, Botswana and Mauritius).

~~~
jacquesm
Thank you for that information, that totally changed my view on the situation
in Botswana. Reading up on Africa from time to time and I completely missed
this.

------
marcusgarvey
We have reached levels of unfathomable wealth.

>Last week, Hong Kong billionaire Joseph Lau paid 48.6 million Swiss francs
($48.4 million) at Sotheby’s in Geneva for a 12.03-carat blue diamond, the
most spent on a jewel at auction. A day earlier, he paid 28.7 million francs
for a 16.08-carat pink diamond. Both purchases were for his 7 year-old
daughter, his office said.

~~~
Canada
That's nothing. Another guy from Hong Kong is offering more than twice that to
anyone who can convince his daughter to be with a man.

~~~
wdmeldon
Which, bigoted and misguided though it may be, offers a much better ROI than
shiny rocks for a child.

------
SideburnsOfDoom
Since the main difference between coal and diamonds is some expensive
processing (currently it's usually done by natural processes but that detail
can be changed)

So diamonds might have a fair price of, to be generous, 1000 * times the cost
of coal. So diamonds cost the ballpark of $50 per kilogram.

Obviously they don't right now, but it gets you thinking about the intrinsic
value of diamond and how that price might move in the future.

~~~
_Codemonkeyism
I wonder about the intrinsic value of dollar notes.

~~~
parasubvert
Same as it is for coal - how long it takes to burn it. Which is a lot quicker.

On the other hand, flags, religious symbols, and monuments don't have a ton of
intrinsic value either, but humans are funny that way, with their social
contrivances.

~~~
masklinn
Industrial diamond use is not limited to burning (in fact burning isn't really
an industrial use of diamond as far as I know, there's plenty of cheap ways to
heat stuff). Diamonds (mostly synthetic) are used for cutting, piercing (drill
bits), abrading[0], anvils in very high-pressure context and electronics heat
sinks.

Most of the mined diamond production and the vast, vast majority of synthetic
diamonds are not gemstone-grade and are used industrially.

[0] for all three mostly as diamond coating on tools, though there are
monocrystalline diamond edges and blades, mostly for surgical use and
microtomy:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diamond_knife](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diamond_knife)

