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Google searches emit carbon, but not very muchA storm in a teacup over the carbon emissions of Google searches Suddenly the carbon footprint of a Google search is big news. The exact facts and precisely who said what remain a little murky, but the following things do seem clear:
So is using the internet bad for the environment? Is this very blog contributing to climate change? Well, yes and no. Mostly no. In a blog article addressing the issue, Google employee Urs Hölzle observes:
It’s a great point, surely. Although I might argue that it’s let down a little because my local library doesn’t hold puppycam videos or DVDs of cute things falling asleep. My point is that there’s an awful lot of Youtube that hasn’t replaced anything, just created a whole new market for carbon-emitting procrastination. The carbon footprint of information technology is growing more quickly than the airline industry’s. Tech-related emissions were recently estimated by Gartner to be around 2% of the global total. As society develops new uses for technology, with greater and faster data needs, that number will grow. The good news is that this is an area in which a company’s profit incentives are firmly aligned with energy reductions. A price on carbon emissions will help further. And don’t forget, minimizing the energy use at your end will help too. Turning off the monitor rather than leaving it on standby really will save you money and energy — and reduce carbon emissions. Much more than you’ll ever cause by reading this blog or watching the puppies, I promise. Image by Flickr user Mykl Roventine. Comments
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This article is a joke...
I'll be sure to make a few pots of tea and think of the sheer level of stupidity that's exibited in articles like this one.
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For carbon-conscious surfers, there's also Blackle, which offers the same search engine as Google but with white type against a black background. That black background means your monitor is using less energy for illumination every time you search. Blackle doesn't have image searches, or maps, or anything other than the basic web search capability, but it's something.
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David: modern monitors use LCDs to opaque a fluorescent backlight. The backlight operates at constant output regardless of the level of white being displayed, so "Blackle" has no effect. If you're still operating an old CRT that might benefit from this, replacing it with a much lower power LCD display will have far more savings than choosing to use white on black coloring.
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I think saying that the footprint of research is smaller now because we don't have to go the library anymore may be a specious argument for Google to make.
First of all, how much research was done pre-Internet and how much is done now. I certainly didn't look every last thing up at the library as I can now. Not to mention the fact that back in those dark ages, I had a really groundbreaking invention right at my fingertips that Google may want to research: books such as dictionaries and encylopedias that I didn't have to drive to get to.
Second, how much of the footprint from a google search comes from the running of google's data center and how much from the trip the request has to make through the "tubes?" I think this is an important point because in days of yore, when folks had to trudge to the library (uphill both ways in the snow, dagnabbit!) I'd bet they were more efficient and looked up all sorts of stuff while there.
So while it sounds nice to say that trips to the library to research were bad for the planet and Google solves that problem, there's a lot more we don't understand about the footprint of cloud computing (which is what this story is really about) than Google wants to admit in its post.
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The article neglected Google's best contribution to reducing carbon emissions. That is: "Blackle." It's Google's search engine with a black background that is purported to use less energy than their usual format. Check it out:
[Ed. -- Blackle is a cute idea, but it doesn't really work.]
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It should be pointed out that the original study didn't look at GOOGLE searches. It looked at visiting any site on the Web. I discovered that when posting about this on my blog.
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You may be interested in ecocho.com, it's a search engine supported by Yahoo! Apparently the site is carbon neutral by planting trees to offset the carbon. I haven't done research on it, but it seems cool.
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Check out another, http://www.co2stats.com/, which claims to account for 1) the overall energy expended by the servers, 2) the overall energy used by the network, and 3) the energy used by the individual computers reading the web page. Further, the site goes on to break down the utilization by coal/gas/nuclear. Finally, based on the monthly usage of the site, CO2Stats buys an REC.
I use the service on my site -- check out the "certified green site" badge and click through at http://fivepercent.us/ -- it's actually pretty cool.
Is this a little bit of hocus-pokus? Well, sure, but having talked with the guy who has developed some of the methods for calculating all this, I think he's making a serious attempt to come up with a realistic estimate.
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