RiceHigh's Pentax Blog: Japan Semiconductor/Imager Fabs and the Earthquake (and the End of the World, as It Could Be!)

Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Japan Semiconductor/Imager Fabs and the Earthquake (and the End of the World, as It Could Be!)

I have seen people of the photo community have been worrying about the cease of production of the Sony (and Canon) sensors and imagers after the big earthquake. One of the readers at the Image Sensors World Blog has actually made an analysis and a nice summary on the situation. See the following location map of the major fabrication facilities in Japan:-

http://image-sensors-world.blogspot.com/2011/03/japan-fabs-and-earthquake.html

Btw, the Sony factories are all at the very southern part in the Japan main island and territory. But however, since now the radioactive particles have been flying in the sky all over Japan now and the emission has been increasing. This is somehow yet another disaster to Japan and actually to the Earth. As the half-life of those radioactive raw materials could be as short as 30 years. I think the soil of the Japanese main island would inevitably be polluted and the health of the people who live there are seriously endangered.

In fact, the Japanese government should allow the assistance from the US government for the cooling of their nuclear plants in the very beginning, which the US offered, but not only at the current stage, which could avoid this terrible disaster to happen. In fact, the foreign medias have started to doubt that the Japanese government had some secrets to hide which they just do not want to disclose these in the course of stopping the nuclear crisis if US is involved.

When one tragedy is happened one after another and the following one is more serious than the previous, this is really rather sad. Indeed the nuclear leakage is partially caused by human but not solely a natural disaster, which only triggered it. It has far more prolonged effect and more serious impacts even than the terrible earthquake and tsunami, which just happened "one-off". Sometime, we just have to sigh, stupid mankind is just the one who will destroy themselves at the end of the days when we or our predecessors will extinct eventually, just because of that we destroy the world and kill ourselves as a result! >:-(

Lastly, I just want to ask our buddies who have worried much just about the production of photo gear, what to worry about actually when the Earth will be destroyed and human cannot live on it anymore?! :-o Yes, the sky is falling! Yes, it is! +_+

Read Also:-

Statuses of Japanese Camera/Lens Plants After the Big Earthquake & Tsunami

The Power of the Nature: Strong and Cruel

Over Hong Kong: Serious Problem of Air Pollution Caused by Industrial Over Production

Comments (10)

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Eric Calabros · 733 weeks ago

there are many UNNATURALs in this natural disaster. but in respect to victims, lets talk about it at a later time.

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rhermans · 733 weeks ago

" the Japanese government should allow the assistance from the US government for the cooling of their nuclear plants in the very beginning "
if they help as fast as they did with that little oil spil a while back you can better evacuate Japan.

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Japanese · 733 weeks ago

It was like letting a teen age driver handle the bus full of passengers and skid off the frozen street without snow tires. Now after the bumping here and there, the kid driver is asking a big mama who made GE nuclear power plant to take over at the cliff. This where we are now.

1 reply · active 733 weeks ago

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RiceHigh 110p · 733 weeks ago

Your analogy is good, but which is sad. Hope all people at Japan are still well and may God bless you all. Good luck!

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James · 733 weeks ago

I think the soil of the Japanese main island would inevitably be polluted <-- wtf. The level of pollution released so far is minimal. There probably won't be more than a few extra cancer cases estimated because of what's happened so far.

4 replies · active 732 weeks ago

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RiceHigh 110p · 733 weeks ago

The radiation level as measured yesterday in the Japan sky is reported to be 330 uSv (i.e., 0.33 mSv), which is 6600 times more than the level in normal environment. Is that not serious enough?

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RiceHigh 110p · 733 weeks ago

For more info and reference, the average dose to people in the three mile island nuclear accident is 0.08 mSv with a maximum dose as much as 1 mSv. So, if the measured radiation is now 0.33 mSv near the venue, the problem is considered to be very serious, already.

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keithj · 733 weeks ago

Just to add clarity here, if I may:

1. Radiation intensity is measured in Sieverts per hour, so the 0.33 figure will refer to 0.33mSv/hour.

2. To get an idea of how much total radiation exposure you need to suffer health issues, take a look here: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/42112bb0-5152-11e0-a9c6...

3. It's not clear what the 0.33 figure actually referred to: was it mainly the radiation emitted by the fuel rods as "seen" from close by, or was it radiation as a result of debris emissions - in which case, how close to the site of the emissions?

It's very easy to become overly depressed by the situation. Don't forget that this probably will end up being far less significant than Chernobyl, and it seems that the vast majority of the deaths caused by Chernobyl were due to the lack of provision of potassium iodide to the children in the affected areas. (Children's thyroid glands are by far the most vulnerable organs in the affected population, I believe.) The Japanese government appears to be doing pretty much the right thing here. Also, most of the radioactive debris is being dispersed over the Pacific (let's hope this situation continues).

Don't get me wrong - like you, I'm very greatly saddened by all the death, devastation and hardship that the Japanese people are experiencing. But things may not be quite as bad as you're fearing.