Comments on: Measuring your Google search's carbon footprint

Harvard University physicist says a typical search on a desktop computer generates about 7 grams of carbon dioxide--a number the search giant disputes.

[tigervb]

Another article points out that Wissner-Gross's paper does not mention Google at all. It only says that the one second of web viewing is creates 20 milligrams of C02.

Do your research next time CNET.

[realityhead]

Let's do the math:
Inefficiencies aside, it takes about 20KJ (kilojoules) to raise the temperature of just one cup (236cc) of water 80 degrees C (from room temp to boiling). That's 20,000 watt-seconds. A typical Google search takes less than 100mS, so say 200mS for two Google searches. That means a burn rate of 100KW for the duration of the search, strictly as a direct result of doing the search.

The claim is, basically, that it costs 10KJ of energy to do a Google search. I recently saw an article that said there were 61B Google searches conducted in August of 2008. That's about 23,500 searches per second. 23,500/s * 10KJ = 5.5e12 W. That would be 5.5 terawatts of power dedicated to Google searches. That's more than the average total power consumption of the U.S., including all sources (gas, coal, nuclear, hydro, etc), which is about 3.2TW according to the DOE.