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Measuring your Google search's carbon footprint
Ecoearth.info Blog —
... about 200 million searches daily. "Google operates huge data centers around the world that consume a great deal of power," Alex Wissner-Gross told the newspaper. "A Google search has a definite environmental impact." The global IT industry generates about 2 percent of global carbon dioxide emissions, or about as much greenhouse gas as the world's airlines, according to a recent Gartner study cited by the newspaper. Google disputed that report late Sunday evening, saying in a blog that the "time it takes to do a Google search, your own personal computer will use more ...
GreenMonk news roundup 01/12/2009
GreenMonk: the blog —
Official Google Blog: Powering a Google search
in the time it takes to do a Google search, your own personal computer will use more energy than Google uses to answer your query.
Recently, though, others have used much higher estimates, claiming that a typical search uses “half the energy as boiling a kettle of water” and produces 7 grams of CO2. We thought it would be helpful to explain why this number is *many* times too high. Google is fast — a typical search returns results in less than 0.2 seconds. Queries vary in degree ...
How many cups of tea does it take to power a Google search?
Do The Green Thing: Stories, videos, and more —
... According to Urs Hölzle, their Senior Vice President of Operations on Google's blog yesterday, this figure is "many times too high". ...
Sunday Times and the Google non-story
GreenMonk: the blog —
... a piece of scientific research has yet to be confirmed. However, given that the researcher in question had no access to Google’s carbon data, this has to be, at best, educated guesswork.
On top of that, the researcher responsible for the claim is CTO of Maxtility, a company whose aim is to:
solve important problems in industries ranging from education to energy
he can hardly be said to be an impartial researcher.
Google responded to the assertions this morning. In Google’s response they ...
Next hot market: Google search carbon offsets?
Greenbang —
... Not surprisingly, Google also takes Wissner-Gross’s research to task, arguing that its energy-efficient data centers generate just 0.2 grams of carbon dioxide per search, meaning it would take 1000 Google searches to equal the emissions of a car driven for one kilometer. ...
Your Google Carbon footprint
Green Home Huddler —
... " is claiming that every Google search is responsible for 7g of CO2 released into the environment and that in aggregate, that's a whole lotta CO2. I'd have to request a little perspective here...a book is responsible for 2500g, a cheeseburger can be responsible for as much as 3600g and Google responded saying that they're actually closer to .2g of CO2 released per search When I think about how many trips to libraries and book stores, etc. I've saved with Google and how much they do for the dissemination of information generally, I think they're doing a great job.
Google disputes Harvard Fellow's pollution estimate
Ecoearth.info Blog —
... a Google search generates 7 grams of carbon dioxide (CO2), slightly less than half as much CO2 as boiling a kettle for a cup of tea. Wissner-Gross maintains that it shows a Google search has "a definite environmental impact." Google, however, is arguing 7 grams is way off and is trivial compared to other CO2-spewing activities, such as driving. One search query releases the equivalent of 0.2 grams of CO2, wrote Urs Hölzle, Google's senior vice president of operations on a company blog late on Sunday. It's difficult to see how either Wissner-Gross or Google come to their ...
Ignore the media hype and keep Googling — The energy impact of web searches is LOW
Climate Progress —
... and a broadband connection. That saves the energy consumed in commuting and a considerable amount of net building energy: Most people’s homes are an underutilized asset, which consume a great deal of energy whether or not they are there. The other mistake just involves the more narrow question of how much energy is consumed by Googling. Wissner-Gross says it is 7g of CO2 per search. My LBNL colleagues say that is way too high, and Google itself has rebutted that analysis with their own , which I reprint here: Not long ago, answering a query meant traveling to the reference ...
Google footprint - Jan 13
Energy Bulletin - —
... factor, the most effective response would be energy-efficient PCs and turning them off when not in use. Turning to green sources of electricity would reduce the carbon footprint. Dr. Wissner-Gross's point about the inefficiency of much web software is a good one. It's all too easy to design a website to be an energy hog. That's one of the reasons we've kept the interface of Energy Bulletin simple. Simple interfaces also reduce the time you spend waiting for an article to display. -BA Powering a Google search Google blog, Google Not long ago, answering a query meant traveling ...
How Many Cups Of Tea Are There In A Google search ?
Peak Energy —
The Google Blog has a post on some dodgy British journalism proclaiming what a large carbon footprint a "Google search" has - Powering a Google search. Of course, most of the power used for a search is used right at your PC, and Google is much cleaner and more efficient in its energy use than, say, the web site of The Times so perhaps the newspapers should have been pointing the finger at their own online editions. ...
The Footprint of a Google Query
GoodCleanTech —
... Before Wissner-Gross can refute what the Times wrote though, Google gave its side of the story in a post on its official blog. The search engine giant claims that through the use of its highly-efficient data centers, it takes only 0.0003 kWh of energy or 0.2 grams of carbon dioxide per search - a far cry from the claimed seven gram figure. ...
Grams be damned
Grist - the Latest from Grist —
... says a single search produces 7g of CO2. Google says, nuh uh, it only produces 0.2g CO2 -- less than your personal computer generates while running it. Lots more ...
Google Disputes Reported Carbon Footprint of Typical Google Search
Environmental Leader —
... . The Harvard academic argues that theses carbon emissions come from electricity used by the computer terminal and by large data centers that Google operates around the world. Dr. Wissner-Gross says the search giant can return fast results because it uses several data banks at the same time. In response, Google wrote on its official blog that Dr. Wissner-Gross’ figures were “many times too high.” Google says a typical search that returned a result in less than 0.2 seconds only used its servers for a few thousandths of a second, which amounted to 0.0003 kilowatt hour of energy ...
Google CO2 Claim Throws CO2Stats Into Limelight
Greentech Media: All Content —
... by a Sun Microsystems employee. But while The Times and Google hash out their disagreements (Google has a blog post saying a typical search leads to only about two-tenths of a gram of CO2 being emitted), Wissner-Gross does have some suggestions for how Websites can reduce their contribution to global warming. While there are too many variations in Web server architecture, local power production sources, and other variables to get too specific, CO2Stats calculated that the average Web search leads to 20 milligrams of CO2 per second being emitted. "That's based on global PC ...
Keep on Googling
Grist - the Latest from Grist —
... The other mistake just involves the more narrow question of how much energy is consumed by Googling. Wissner-Gross says it is 7g of CO2 per search. My LBNL colleagues say that is way too high, and Google itself has rebutted that analysis with their own, which I reprint here: ...
Google Rebuts Claims about CO2 Cost of Searches
EarthFirst.com —
... reported last Sunday that doing two searches on Google uses about as much energy as boiling a kettle of water, an allegation that Google is denying on their official blog. The information in theTimes article was supposedly based on research by Harvard University physicist Alex Wissner-Gross and delves into the “secrecy” of Google’s energy consumption and carbon footprint. ...
Eliminate Newspapers, Save the Planet?
Green Inc. —
... of London reported studies by a Harvard physicist showing that a typical search on Google – involving several attempts to find relevant information – generates about 7 grams of carbon dioxide. Google disputed aspects of that finding, and it has underlined that its energy efficient data centers generate the kinds of media that help in “decreasing our reliance on car trips, pulp and paper.”
Carbon Footprint of Spam: Hello, the Internet Uses Energy
Earth2Tech —
... about 0.2 grams of CO2 emissions (while there were some issues with the original Google carbon search report, that’s their official figure). Always-on web services like our dearly-beloved ...
Is the net hurting the environment?
Ecoearth.info Blog —
... jet fuel, but the internet is not without its own, huge carbon footprint. One estimate suggests it takes a whopping 152 billion kilowatt-hours per year just to power the data centres that keep the net running. Add to that the energy used by all the computers and peripherals linked to it and the whole thing could be responsible for as much as 2 per cent of all human-made CO 2 emissions, putting it on a par with the aviation industry. The way we use our computers also has an impact. According to Google , the production of the electricity needed for a single internet search ...
My new (almost) zero carbon website
Marc Gunther —
... and this.) If anyone can give me a reasonable estimate of the GHG emissions of this blog—even a guesstimate—I will be pleased to buy offsets and go entirely carbon neutral. ...
The Cost of Conservation RTP
5 Minutes For Going Green —
... Besides this, there are the actual impacts of what some supposed "green" ideas actually have on the environment. Certain things which save trees, like online bill pay, seem like an easy way to be green and you do save a lot of trees, but using the internet does leave a carbon footprint. Google was very upfront about how much energy their searches consume, but look at the numbers and think of how many thousands of searches you have done. It's not much, but it adds up quickly. So what can you do about that? ...
