Slashdot Mirror
The Environmental Impact of Google Searches
paleshadows writes "The Times Online reports that researchers claim that each query submitted to Google has a quantifiable impact. Specifically, two queries performed through a desktop computer generate about the same amount of carbon dioxide as boiling a cup of tea. From the article: 'While millions of people tap into Google without considering the environment, a typical search generates about 7g of CO2 [whereas] boiling a kettle generates about 15g [...] Google is secretive about its energy consumption and carbon footprint. It also refuses to divulge the locations of its data centers. However, with more than 200m Internet searches estimated daily, the electricity consumption and greenhouse gas emissions caused by computers and the Internet is provoking concern. A recent report [argues that] the global IT industry generate[s] as much greenhouse gas as the world's airlines — about 2% of global CO2 emissions.'" Google makes an interesting focus for such claims, but similar extrapolations have been done before about, for instance, the energy costs of sending a short email.
It would be better if you rode the bus to the library. But that would be inconvenient. It says a lot about the issue that everybody (except all the kneejerk "skeptics" that will soon post on this story) cares about curbing greenhouse gases, but nobody is willing to make the troublesome lifestyle changes necessary to make a real difference.
My city doesn't have bus service. So yes, waiting for a bus would be incredibly inconvenient.
nobody is willing to make the troublesome lifestyle changes necessary to make a real difference.
Does this include you? People aren't going to make huge changes because, for the most part, that doesn't make a big difference. Everyone making a small change has a much, much bigger impact than just a few people (those unselfish enough to care) making a big change. Raising the minimum legal mileage for new cars by one MPG would be a much, much bigger change than me riding a bike to work every day. (Not that I could given the distance, nor could both me and my wife given how far apart we work no matter where we move.) I can choose to not buy another car until one that gets high mileage from an alternative fuel source is available, which is what I've been doing for the last few years.
I personally boil my tea and coffee water in the microwave.
I drink tap water at whatever temperature it comes out of the cold faucet. That reduces my carbon footprint further. =p
It doesn't hurt to be nice.
Google claims to use less energy than the user during the search:
http://www.google.com/intl/en/corporate/datacenters/
"The graph below shows that our Google-designed data centers use considerably less energy - both for the servers and the facility itself - than a typical data center. As a result, the energy used per Google search is minimal. In fact, in the time it takes to do a Google search, your own personal computer will use more energy than we will use to answer your query."
The researcher claims that surfing produces 0.02g of CO2 per second.
In fact, in the time it takes to do a Google search, your own personal computer will use more energy than we will use to answer your query.
From http://www.google.com/corporate/datacenters/
I do know that actually. But transmission and distribution losses in the USA are estimated at 7.2%. If the longest feasable power line is 4000 miles long, and google is putting their data centers 4 miles from hydro electric plants, they're saving 7.2% more energy than other data centers on average (margin of error 0.001%).
Transmission losses are one of the biggest arguments in heating the home with gas vs. electric, since with gas you're getting 100% of the avalible heat from the fuel, as opposed to electric where at most 90% of the heat is converted into electricity at the plant, you lose another 7% in transmission and then another 1-2% in the heater itself = 18-19% energy loss from a coal or natural gas power plant vs. heating with gas in the home.
moox. for a new generation.
Some facts as I understand them snarfed from the web - corrections welcomed...
rough cost of (wholesale) energy per kilowatt hour (kwh): ~5c
CO2 cost per kwh: ~1kg (coal power: http://cdiac.ornl.gov/pns/faq.html)
time for my (small) 1 litre (~ 1kw) kettle to boil when full is ~ 5 minutes which compares well with the theoretical energy for a 1litre at ~350kj, or 350 seconds time for 1kw . Hence power for a small boiled kettle is a killowatt for 1/10 of an hour, or 0.1 kwh
So I get... ... the article says a kettle take 15g, which I don't get even close to; maybe clever people boil just enough to make single cups only?
Kettle boiling: costs ~.5c, and ~ 100g,
If the article was true, Google doing "more than 200m" searches a day would spend ~ $20m a day on power, or ~ $7billion a year, consuming 100,000 megawatt hours, or a continuous drain of 4,000 megawatts (about the power output of a small US state). On the authors figures, total power consumption would be ~ 650 megawatts, which is still pretty huge, and would still be spending ~ $1billion a year.
Google use cheap, mass produced low power units in gigantic numbers - estimates are hard to come by, I will estimate 200,000 based on inflating some public estimates (e.g. http://arnab.org/blog/how-many-computers-does-google-have).
Energy cost of networking is significant, but I do not believe as great as machines; I'll add 50% for good luck. Utility server machines are dropping in power (~100-200w) but also require cooling, UPSs and network etc., so let's call it 500w all up (figures are difficult to get; everyone is selling something power center wise) - so I get 100 megawatts; or 1/6th of the author's estimate, or 1/40th of the true kettle figure.
I'd say that the author is overstating the case to make a political point - if I was cynical I'd point out the author has also just launched a business to 'green your web site' by installing monitoring software, estimating the energy cost of searches to it, and then buying carbon offsets on your behalf, so it is in his interests to overestimate such usage..
Wer mit Ungeheuern kämpft, mag zusehn, dass er nicht dabei zum Ungeheuer wird.
Did the author read Google's on pages on energy usage?
http://www.google.com/corporate/green/energy/reducing.html
http://www.google.com/corporate/datacenters/index.html
Think Deeply.