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Google Details and Defends Its Use of Electricity
theodp writes "On Thursday, Google finally provided information on its energy usage, revealing that it continuously uses enough electricity to power 200,000 homes. Still, the search giant contends that by using more power than Salt Lake City, Google actually makes the world a greener place. Google says people should consider things like the amount of gasoline saved when someone conducts a Google search rather than, say, driving to the library. As Police Chief Martin Brody might say, 'Google's going to need a bigger windmill!'"
Google is not simply using that energy, that energy is being used by google users all over the world.
Those same users are also using energy locally to connect to the internet.
blog.sam.liddicott.com
but rather are they using the electricity efficiently
The more relevant comparison seems like it'd be to other commercial users. It's not likely that if Google were disbanded, it would turn into residential population; it's more likely that, if we didn't have Google, we'd have other companies employing these people and occupying a certain niche of the economy.
From that perspective, is Google's energy usage high or low for a company of its market-cap / revenue / profits? For example, it has almost exactly the same market cap as Wal-Mart; how does the energy usage of the two companies compare, both in terms of overall size, and things like greenness of the source?
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Every bulk buyer get a big discount. If you think google uses a lot, you should see what some industrial companies that use electricity-heavy manufacturing processes (like the aluminum industry) uses. A lot of those guys have large power plants dedicated solely to them.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Eh, not necessarily. I'm sure they're hypocrites to an extent, but you could make the same argument about people who claim to be animal lovers who aren't vegan. Just because a feeling doesn't rule all aspects of your life, that doesn't mean you're a hypocrite. People who eat meat can still work to benefit animals in other ways (working at the shelter, cleaning up a habitat, etc) and people who care about carbon emissions can both invest in cleaner energy while using massive amounts of it. Besides, Google is one of the largest corporations in the world and is primarily geared towards electronic-powered devices; why wouldn't it use a lot of power?
Also, when you have that kind of money, why shouldn't you be able to see the celestial event of a lifetime? Yeah, they could have put it towards more energy, but people could also use the money they spend on entertainment and give it to charity instead. There's nothing wrong with doing both.
Google chose the site for one of it's data centers to take advantage of a hydro power plant that had formerly supplied an aluminum foundry.