Searching on Google Hurts The Environment (Or Just a Media Beat-Up?)
By Anna Johnson on January 12th, 2009Did you know that performing two Google searches using a desktop computer produces about the same amount of carbon dioxide as boiling a kettle for a cup of tea?
That’s the finding of Harvard University physicist and co-founder of CO2Stats.com, Alex Wissner-Gross, who will soon publish his research on the environmental impact of computing.
Apparently, a typical search generates about 7g of carbon dioxide (CO2) while boiling a kettle generates about 15g. This is based on both the energy consumed by the average desktop computer and the computer power used by Google’s servers when processing a search request.
Well this is what an article in Sunday’s U.K. based The Times said. Along with the fact that the energy consumed by using an avatar on Second Life is about 1.752 kilowatt hours of electricity per year and typing posts on Twitter also consumes a huge amount of energy.
Apparently, we must all consider the environmental impact of our actions before searching on Google or Twittering or doing various other things online.
Useful and helpful information… or a media beat-up?
After all, it’s all very well to lambaste Google and its users (that would be me and, I’m guessing, you) for ‘wasting’ energy… but what about the energy we are saving by using, say, Google instead of driving down to the local university or library to find the information we’re looking for?
And for all the energy being consumed by using the Internet… what about all the good brought about by the Internet? (Sure, there is bad too, but you and I wouldn’t be, among other things, reaping the rewards of an Internet based business if it wasn’t for the Net…)
And what about Google’s own investments in alternative energy sources through its non-profit arm, Google.org? And what about the exposure that social media services such as Twitter have given movements like the Pickens’ Plan (T. Boone Pickens’ plan for U.S. energy independence and greater use of wind power?)
As indicated by Jason Kincaid in Tech Crunch, The Times’ article fails to put Google’s energy consumption into perspective and, specifically, fails to provide the other side of the story: the good brought about by using Google and the Internet, and the energy SAVED by using these technologies as opposed to doing other things.
Source: Jonathan Leake and Richard Woods, “Revealed: the environmental impact of Google searches,” The Times, January 11, 2009, Jason Kincaid, “Are We Killing The Planet One Google Search At A Time?” TechCrunch, January 11, 2009
