The Environmental Impact of Google Searches 516
paleshadows writes "The Times Online reports that researchers claim that each query submitted to Google has a quantifiable impact. Specifically, two queries performed through a desktop computer generate about the same amount of carbon dioxide as boiling a cup of tea. From the article: 'While millions of people tap into Google without considering the environment, a typical search generates about 7g of CO2 [whereas] boiling a kettle generates about 15g [...] Google is secretive about its energy consumption and carbon footprint. It also refuses to divulge the locations of its data centers. However, with more than 200m Internet searches estimated daily, the electricity consumption and greenhouse gas emissions caused by computers and the Internet is provoking concern. A recent report [argues that] the global IT industry generate[s] as much greenhouse gas as the world's airlines — about 2% of global CO2 emissions.'" Google makes an interesting focus for such claims, but similar extrapolations have been done before about, for instance, the energy costs of sending a short email.
Wrong Comparison (Score:5, Insightful)
Were there not a Google (or internet equivalent), I wouldn't sit back in my rocking chair, exclaim "Oh, well," and have a cup or two of tea. Instead, I'd get in my car and drive to the library to look whatever it was up in a reference book, or search the catalog for a book I could borrow on the topic.
In that way, Google (or equivalent) saves energy.
Now that said, I expect Google to do their best to minimize energy consumption. Given that their electricity costs directly hit their cost of doing business, I suspect they agree with this goal.
Actual Impact? (Score:2, Insightful)
I find it somewhat hard to believe that this study will change anything; the number of searches are not going to decrease, and people are probably not going to stop drinking tea. So even if each search released fifteen times more CO2, would that change anything?
As much as airlines? (Score:4, Insightful)
A recent report [argues that] the global IT industry generate[s] as much greenhouse gas as the world's airlines â" about 2% of global CO2 emissions.
Oh, that's not bad. Considering how huge a positive impact the IT industry has, that honestly seems like a relatively acceptable amount. And I'd rather have two googles than a cup of tea any day.
Good Lord... (Score:3, Insightful)
Just 200 million searches? (Score:3, Insightful)
mandatory carbon credit purchases coming (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Good Lord... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Good Lord... (Score:3, Insightful)
In fact, there are environmentalists who do claim they think the world would be better off without people. There is a point where environmentalism changes from prudent concern to misanthropy.
What is the environmental impact of.... (Score:1, Insightful)
Authoring, editing, and distributing inane studies about the environmental impact of things like Google Searches?
I have an idea... how about all the people who are worried about it stop using their computers.... and stop breathing... then the rest of us can get on with our lives.
Re:Knee-jerk reactions (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Wrong Comparison (Score:3, Insightful)
Tell the guy who made that research :
"Google refuses to divulge the locations of its data centres"
So basically he doesn't know whether their datacentres are plugged into coal power plants or nuclear plants, he's just making wild assumptions?
"When you type in a Google search for, say, âoeenergy saving tipsâ, your request doesnâ(TM)t go to just one server. It goes to several competing against each other."
Wow, that was a pretty fucking lame way to make it sound energy-inefficient. As if it consumed more energy because a single search goes through many different computers.. Plus it's making it sound like Google gets the job done redundantly and you get the result from whichever does the job the fastest, which is obviously balls. And by balls I mean misleading.
"Simply running a PC generates between 40g and 80g per hour"
That's funny because mine generates 0g per hour. It's called nuclear power.
"Last week Stephen Fry, the TV presenter, was posting "tweets" from New Zealand, imparting such vital information as..."
OMG Stephen Fry you bastard how dare you emit gasses to inform us of your adventures around the globe! Let's overlook the fact that most of electricity in New Zealand is produced by hydropower stations.
Is it me or is the point of this article "feel guilty for doing anything with your computer 'cause it ruins the planet thank you very much you bastard"? while acting like using power is inherently polluting whereas it really depends on the source?
Re:Wrong Comparison (Score:3, Insightful)
Good point. Or maybe just as much to the point, even if you were doing things online, if not for Google, someone else would be doing the same thing. If no one were doing it, then it would just mean it would take you much longer to find the things you were looking for, which would arguably lead to you using more of other resources.
The point of the article seems to be that Google is optimizing for performance instead of energy consumption. Seems like a valid complaint, except that if their engine performed badly, they'd be out of business completely. I'm sure Google is trying to be as energy efficient as is reasonable, since wasted energy means wasted money. It may also be that, if Google weren't so dominant, then there would be multiple providers each doing the same thing, being even less efficient.
It seems like a better tact might be to try to pressure Google into using alternative energy sources. On the other hand, it's not at all clear to me how much control Google has over where their electricity comes from. Another option would be to pressure Intel (or whoever produces the hardware Google runs on) to make their products more energy efficient. But again, I'm pretty sure they're doing the best they can. If Intel could realistically produce drastic cuts to the power consumption of their chips, they'd do it because it would be a big competitive advantage. It's just not quite that simple.
Re:Wrong Comparison (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Wrong Comparison (Score:4, Insightful)
That's funny because mine generates 0g per hour. It's called nuclear power.
I doubt this. You have to mine uranium ore, refine it to sth breedable, build a reactor and transport lots of weight around. This will produce lots of CO2 initially and continuously unless your machinery doesn't run on fossil fuels. Which is very unlikely.
revealed? (Score:4, Insightful)
1. Exposing corporations for the evil bastards they are has much less impact when you make up all the numbers.
2. In the Dalles here in Oregon, their project 02 datacenter pulls all of it's power straight from the hydro dam next door. In fact, the whole reason they built there was because of all the dark fiber underneath, and the hydroelectric dam adjacent. Google didn't get rich by making shitty decisions when it comes to power consumption.
Re:Wrong Comparison (Score:2, Insightful)
If Google hadn't ever come into being, then there would be other search engines.
Most likely a lot of competing search engines using lots of power trying to index the web using outdated techniques, or perhaps, players would have eventually developed Google's techniques... (not so likely)
Compared to MSN Search running on hundreds of thousands of big-iron Windows NT/2k3/2008 MSSQL+IIS servers, it seems like Google's clustering methodology and customized lightweight Linux OSes should be blazingly efficient (more power per watt used).
More efficient building the database... and more efficient again, when it comes time to query it.
Consider the fact, that if the internet existed, and Google didn't get all these queries, they'd be spread across the curernt Google competitors.
There would be even fewer queries, more likely, since searching is a pain with most Google competitors, so the energy consumed per query could be averaged at several times greater.
The numbers don't add up. (Score:3, Insightful)
Now lets be really pessimistic on the Google front. Suppose my search takes Google 1 second, and the search is distributed over ten 500W servers. That's 5 kJ expended. Lets double that to allow for the costs of spidering and indexing, and double again since the article mentions two searches per cup. Thats 20 kJ. Assume I spend a minute on my 30W laptop viewing the search results; thats another 2 kJ.
So We have 84 kJ verses 22 kJ.
Re:Good Lord... (Score:1, Insightful)
The world is meaningful only because there are people.
Without people, the world is meaningless, by definition. Because meaning is assigned by people.
Re:Good Lord... (Score:4, Insightful)
Tomorrow as you head to work, take a look around at the people you pass. I'd venture to say, the process of hunting and gathering would cull about 99.7% of those you see. Hunting and gathering is a lot of work.
Re:Wrong Comparison (Score:3, Insightful)
My city doesn't have bus service. So yes, waiting for a bus would be incredibly inconvenient.
Even if you did live in a city with bus service, very few U.S. cities have systems that don't take forever to get you to where you want to go. The only people that use them are folks who don't have access to a car for some reason or another.
So, most of us have really good excuses for not relying on public transit. But excuses are not solutions. I don't see anybody pounding on their local government demanding bigger mass transit systems. At least, not as many as complain about the condition of the road system.
Does this include you?
Absolutely. I never said I was better than everybody else. Like everybody else, I'm waiting on everybody else.
Everyone making a small change has a much, much bigger impact than just a few people (those unselfish enough to care) making a big change.
I'm sorry, but that's feel-good nonsense. If everybody switched to cars that go, say 20% better mileage, we're talking about a fractional decrease in total CO2 emissions. It's not even enough to offset all the folks in the developing world who are getting more prosperous and buying cars of their own.
And cars are only one aspect. Meat production accounts for something like 1/3 of greenhouse gases. All that crap you buy from Amazon (and yes, I buy it too) makes a big dent, between the air freight and all those UPS trucks. Even our fondness for excessive packing makes a huge dent.
I'm not saying the problem's intractable. I'm saying it can't be done without major livestyle changes by everybody. And yes, I'm hypocritical about this, because I'm old and tired and don't have the energy to kick the shit that needs to be kicked. But my hypocrisy doesn't change the facts.
I'm not pointing fingers here. I'm just as bad as everybody else. I'm simply saying that people who think they're making a difference by buying a high-mileage car and recycling their bottles are fooling themselves.
Re:Good Lord... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:We need the moderate middle gound!!! (Score:0, Insightful)
These are never real environmental groups. Do you ever wonder where they get their money? It's from industries that don't want competition. Sometimes environmentalists don't even realize they are working for a competing industry.
Re:Mod Up (Score:2, Insightful)
If you are a subscribed member of slashdot, you can find my post with all the references very easily. For that matter, even if you are not, you can still find a link to my slashdot post on Google.
I can offer a great deal better than just criticism from non-scientists. How about some of the scientists who worked on the original IPCC climate change report from the U.N.? Some of whom have tried to have their names removed from the report for the simple reason that "our science does not support the published conclusion"?
I will be honest with you: I have grown tired of re-publishing this information for everybody who has sucked up the mainstream media view and refuses to believe anything else. I have done so many times already. Nevertheless, I will link to it one more time. If you actually read these articles (not all of them are peer-reviewed but they reference other peer-reviewed papers, some by the same authors), you will see that there are a LOT of reputable scientists who do in fact disagree. I do not expect to sway your opinion, but if you really do read this material, and come back still believing that "greenhouse global warming" is an established reality, then you will not have been honest with yourself.
I have not updated this in a while but then I have had no need:
http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=591545&threshold=1&commentsort=0&mode=nested&cid=23930415 [slashdot.org]
And by the way, I am also seriously tired of -- and pissed off about -- being constantly modded as "troll" or "flamebait" for simply mentioning things that are backed by science and which I can support with plenty of evidence... as I did here, yet again. All that shows is the general level of ignorance of the typical slashdot reader. I am not pointing fingers at anybody who has actually participated in discussion here.
Re:Good Lord... (Score:3, Insightful)
Yeah, and it would probably only take six months of that before the HUGE number of people still left are survival experts extrodinaire.
You see, homo sapiens became the dominant species on the planet because of raw intelligence and the ability to communicate. Oh, sure, the random lion can outpower a human. However, anywhere humans settle you're not going to find wild lions running around. If lions are spotted there would be lots of yelling and shouting and then the lions would be carefully surrounded by 47 guys with spears and bows. More likely than not the lions wouldn't even try to get close - since their evolutionary adaptation is to know what looks like an easy meal and what doesn't.
Humans have been at the top of the food chain for certainly tens of thousands of years at least. Sure, the average american wouldn't be adept with a spear, but even a mentally retarded human has about a million times more learning capacity than just about any other animal out there.
No, if things got that desperate, it wouldn't be the animals we'd be looking out for. You'd see tribal warfare like you're never heard of with all those people fighting over so little food.
All of this is silly, however. The average westerner doesn't know how to hunt and fish because they've adapted to a completely different technology-based world. You'll never see humans give that up voluntarily. About the only thing I can think of that might lead to a hunter-gathering situation would be a full scale nuclear war.
Re:Mod Up (Score:5, Insightful)
You don't know this either. You've just been told by people who want to disagree with the media and organizations like the U.N.
Re:An old email relating to carbon footprint of da (Score:1, Insightful)
This is true but it's always good to fully explain what is meant by it: It takes as much fuel to drive an SUV around the world as it does to fly around the world.
So if you were to drive at 65 MPH for 24+ days [yahoo.com] (assuming 8 hours sleep a day) you would use as much fuel as one flight. It goes to show you how much fuel those planes use, eh?
Again, if you're reading this and you're from New Zealand visit CreativeFreedom.org.nz [creativefreedom.org.nz]
I find that hard to believe. (Score:3, Insightful)
Think about this logically: someone, somewhere, has to pay for the electricity for all that. It trickles down to the consumer or the company fails. So: where is the massive cost from the rough equivalent to 400-odd cups of tea I boil every day?
Re:I don't buy it... (Score:5, Insightful)
It would take spectacular dishonesty to fudge the energy to make a cup of tea an order of magnitude lower.
The skepticism shown in this thread is fully justified.
Efforts to operate more efficiently are not helped by fallacious arguments and mindless cheerleading.
Re:Mod Up (Score:4, Insightful)
I posted a very long list of scientific articles and papers that refute the CO2 and other greenhouse warming models. Saying that "nobody who's seriously studied it disagrees" is simply a false statement. Look it up if you want to.
That sounded like an incredibly reasonable statement, so I went ahead and clicked on your link to take a look at the articles and papers you talked about.
Turns out you had a bunch of links from obviously biased websites like "heartland.org" who seem to be some bullshit about how the free market is the solution to all problems, forces.org which has some bullshit "scientific evidence" that smoking is not really that bad for you, a republican senator's speech as some type of authority on the subject (not to mention that Jim Inhofe has a history of citing the Bible as support for his stance on issues...how scientific of him), and a blog.
You didn't cite a single peer-reviewed article, and you excuse yourself for not doing that by first posting a bunch of links that aim to prove peer-review is flawed. I've been in academia, so I know it's not perfect, but peer review is sort of like democracy. It's the worst possible method to do things, except for all the others.
And by the way, I am also seriously tired of -- and pissed off about -- being constantly modded as "troll" or "flamebait" for simply mentioning things that are backed by science and which I can support with plenty of evidence
You don't post anything backed by science, though. If you want anybody to take you seriously, you must use peer-reviewed sources and only from reputable journals at that. Otherwise, your evidence amounts to shit kooks believe in.
Now, that said, I'm not unsympathetic to the ultimate goals places like forces.org and hell, even heartland.org have. However, they need to accomplish their goal by not trying to bs the public. The evidence clearly points that smoking is horrible for your health. However, if people want to smoke, it's their goddamn life, and it's their right to risk it if they want to, I don't need some article showing some fake evidence that you're actually better off not quitting because the health risks of quitting are worse.
Similarly, the evidence clearly points in support of greenhouse global warming. However, it makes absolutely no sense for us to leave less convenient lives and use less energy in an attempt to curb it. Even if all of us cut our energy usage by half, population growth and continued development of third-world countries will quickly cause total energy usage to grow significantly beyond current total usage. We need to control population growth by supporting birth control and improving economic conditions (developed nations actually have negative growth if you don't count immigration). We need to quit our fear of nuclear and build a bunch of breeder reactors, which are actually efficient with their nuclear fuel and have very low emissions.
Basically, have the courage to say, "yes, global warming is real, but who the fuck gives a shit if polar bears go extinct? They're not the first species on the planet to do, and they won't be the last. Don't be a moron trying to claim "scientific" evidence exists while simultaneously claiming the only thing that makes scientific claims valid (peer-review) doesn't work and dismissing all the peer-reviewed papers because of it. You're just showing your ignorance.
Re:We need the moderate middle gound!!! (Score:4, Insightful)
> We need to use non carbon emitting sources such as nuclear power, solar and wind power.
None of these are 0 carbon if you look at the full life cycle: building, transporting the materials (and fuel and waste), storing the waste and then decommissioning. What you try to do is *reduce* the carbon output. And not consuming energy is the best for that. And the quickest.
> Its also ironic that the greenies always try to inhibit the green power they always go on about.
There is nothing ironic about it: "greenies" are not some kind of homogeneous blob: they are different people with different priorities and ideals, same as all groups of people.
Re:Wrong Comparison (Score:4, Insightful)
the efficiency is well over 100%
So when does the rest of the world get to benefit from this perpertual motion device ?
Nothing can be over 100% efficient, ever, unless you want to start violating the conservation of energy and thermodynamics laws.
Do read before replying, it saves embarrassment. Heat pumps do allow you to get more heat energy out than the energy used to drive the pump. OK, the energy isn't magically created, it's moved from somewhere else - so what you're doing is refrigerating either the air outside or the ground outside (both of which are ultimately heated by the sun). So, no - ye cannae break the laws of physics, Jim. But a heat pump nevertheless yields more energy than you use to drive it.
please click on my website .. :) (Score:3, Insightful)