I work in the diamond business as well, and was really intrigued by this process. I am trying to hypothesize what will happen if these new diamonds hit the market. I think if this is all true, and these diamonds can actually be mass produced, the jewelery market will crumble and have to rebuild itself. Only a small portion of the larger companies will make it through this, and the small guys wont be making enough money to stay in business. There still are colored stones, pearls, and much more, but i suppoese if society can accpet man made diamonds, they will much more easily be attracted to man made colored stones.
Now in reality I do find it hard to completely believe the claims of these companies. I think it's a scare tactic and that they are further off than they may want us to believe. The next ten years will be interesting though, and I have to say I think DeBeers is going to do something big that may suprise us all. These guys are smart, and are extremely rich, and have complete control over the diamond markets. They will not go down just like that. They overcame the moissanite scare, 99% of diamond testers in your local jewelery store can not tell the difference between the two. My boss has one, and I will soon. Cost is about $300 a carat I believe, although a trained eye may be able to see a difference if closely examined.
It's just one of those funny things, most customers whould shun the idea if i offered it to them, they probably wouldn't feel safe shopping at our store. The American public is scared of anything that isn't the norm, that hasn't been heavily endorsed by DeBeers, the rest of the retail industry, or the rest of society. The main problem these companies will have is making the public feel like they are actually buying a diamond, the same thing thats in their mothers ring they admired the past fifty years. I am anxious to see what other applications this will have in the semiconducter world, efficient, cheap, lightweight cell phones, computers, and who knows what else they will think of.