Leonardo DiCaprio’s Diamond Foundry factory to be built in Extremadura

A COMPANY co-founded by Hollywood actor Leonardo DiCaprio is to open a factory in the Extremaduran municipality of Trujillo

Hollywood actor Leonardo DiCaprio famously starred in the film ‘Blood Diamond‘ in 2006, and subsequently became a devout activist against the way diamond mining was carried out in Africa, using semi-slavery to fund armed conflicts, and as a result, he decided to invest in the Diamond Foundry, a company based in Silicon Valley company that produces the gem synthetically.

In an interview with El Pais, Martin Roscheisen, the co-founder, and executive director of Diamond Foundry, explained that the company is to open a 30,000m² facility in the Extremaduran municipality of Trujillo, in Caceres province, pointing out their reason for using this area, “The availability of solar energy is quite high in Extremadura, and we want our foundry to be powered by renewable energies”.

This new factory will possibly be located on the Arroyo Caballo industrial estate, equipped with plasma reactors that will operate 24 hours a day, along with a 120-megawatt solar power plant and storage infrastructure producing 60 megawatts of power.

One of the company mottos is, “Just Diamond. No mining”, and Mr Roscheisen emphasised that not only will his factory be used for jewellery, but that diamonds have other industrial purposes, “We will produce diamond crystal chips”, that will be used “to make semiconductors more efficient. A fraction of the production will also go to the so-called mid-tier diamond industry, large buyers in India that serve the rest of the industries that need diamonds, including jewellery”.

When the agreement was signed back in June, bringing 300 new jobs to the region, Guillermo Fernandez Vara, the president of the Junta de Extremadura said, “the Extremadura region is the best place in the world to carry out this project”, pointing to the region’s natural resources, something that DiCaprio has known how to value, as he does with so many of the companies in which he invests, especially if they create innovative projects that protect the environment, take care of endangered species, and ensure the future of threatened communities, as reported by 20minutos.es.

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