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.
I don't buy it... (Score:4, Interesting)
I'd like to see the in-depth math on this, I don't buy these numbers, its smells of environmental-shock-value reasoning... Example - if they are dividing the total power used by google by the number of searches, that would only be applicable if google were working at 100% capacity and if *all* they did was searches...
This is kinda like the Greenpeace founder who hated nuclear power till they read a freaking book. Boo.
Re:Wrong Comparison (Score:3, Interesting)
It would be better if you rode the bus to the library. But that would be inconvenient. It says a lot about the issue that everybody (except all the kneejerk "skeptics" that will soon post on this story) cares about curbing greenhouse gases, but nobody is willing to make the troublesome lifestyle changes necessary to make a real difference. Instead, we nibble around the edges of the problem, with marginal changes like "shrinking our carbon footprint" (hence this story and the strong market for hybrid cars) and spending money on "offsets".
I personally boil my tea and coffee water in the microwave. I do this because it's fast, because it gets the water to exactly the right temperature (if you have one of those boiling water sensors in your oven) and because the calcium accumulation in a teakettle is gross. But it does reduce my carbon footprint, though I have no idea how much.
Re:Wrong Comparison (Score:4, Interesting)
Not to mention they're VERY close to the power source, which means very little power is wasted in the transmission/transmission lines. The signal from the data center to your ISP is a photon so there's very little transmission loss until it gets to the last mile. Really it's up to the consumer to have a energy efficient computer more than anything else.
An old email relating to carbon footprint of data (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm on this advisory group of 6 people and we wanted to participate in a 2 day conference by flying a representative there or through video conferencing. For some reason the carbon footprint argument was used IN SUPPORT of flying because of that recent news about data-centres being polluters. There was news that IT are going to be the 2nd largest cause of pollution in a few years, and therefore flying was somehow comparably damaging to IT.
I thought that this was against common sense, but it was surprisingly difficult to understand the difference. If an ISP wanted to 'go green' what kind of carbon offset would they need to invest in, per Gig? I found a Harvard study[***] on banner ads that seems to be applicable to internet traffic in general.
It's difficult to quantify and compare the two scenarios[*] but flying to London and back releases about 4,000 kilos of CO2[**] whereas sending 10G of data (video conferencing of youtube-quality video for 16 hours to 7 people) releases about about 100 kilos of CO2[***] + 30 kilos to run 7 computers for two days. While the plane's CO2 cost is only in terms of fuel (and not airports or surrounding infrastructure) the data CO2 from the Harvard study[***] is inclusive of wider infrastructure. Also planes releasing CO2 into the upper atmosphere do more damage than CO2 being released on the ground due to Radiative forcing.
One interesting thing from the Harvard study relates to Moores Law, "we calculate that energy intensity of the internet declined by approximately an order of magnitude from 2000 to 2006. While energy use approximately doubled in that time period, data traffic grew by more than a factor of 20". Now I know that Moores Law is purely about transistor chip density so please don't misunderstand me -- I just mean that as computers and networks get faster the energy needed for 1 gig of traffic will decrease.
So it's about 4000 kilos for flying ONE PERSON vs 130 kilos of video conferencing FOR ALL PEOPLE.
[*] because of course it depends on how wide you consider the effects. Flight pollution should of course include airport pollution but how far do we go? Does it include power company polution for the power needed in the airport? It seems that a lot of IT studies are wider in scope than that of flight.
[**] http://www.cheap-parking.net/flight-carbon-emissions.php [cheap-parking.net] for flying half way around the world and back.
[***] Harvard Study on CO2 for data: http://www.imc2.com/Documents/CarbonEmissions.pdf [imc2.com]
ps. In New Zealand? Sign up to http://CreativeFreedom.org.nz [creativefreedom.org.nz]
Re:Wrong Comparison (Score:3, Interesting)
I don't think individual queries actually consume this much extra energy.
They are estimating the total power consumption of google's infrastructure and dividing it by the number of search queries.
Google has ample spare capacity doing very little.
So the more searches that are performed, the less the energy consumption per search.
The methodology is flawwed... attributing consumption of infrastructure automatically to its users
Re:Wrong Comparison (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
I'm inclined to agree. It's impossible to determine whether using Google results in a net savings or loss of energy/carbon/etc. when compared to the actions that would replace using Google. The article does go on to state that a relative comparison is more important than absolute values, but does so after a lot of rather accusatory language that sets the tone. Unfortunate.
We need the moderate middle gound!!! (Score:3, Interesting)
While I agree with the sentiment I cannot go so far as to be guilted into not using Google. This craziness stretches into other areas. Large plasma TVs are facing face being banned in the EU. http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/green-living/giant-plasma-tvs-face-ban-in-battle-to-green-britain-1299665.html [independent.co.uk]
There is talk about heavily taxing the airline industry to bring down the number of miles flown.
There seems to be no middle ground. Either its denial of global warming or banning major economic and social activity in the name of the environment.
Of course we can solve the problem. We need to use non carbon emitting sources such as nuclear power, solar and wind power. Instead the greenies on Europe want to guilt anyone who uses energy. In the end all that does is to depress the economy, raise unemployment and lower standards of living.
Its also ironic that the greenies always try to inhibit the green power they always go on about. The have stopped wind power on top of mountains in Vermont ( http://www.windaction.org/news/3653 [windaction.org] )and filed lawsuits against solar power in the Nevada desert. http://features.csmonitor.com/environment/2008/09/25/are-some-solar-projects-no-longer-%E2%80%98green%E2%80%99/ [csmonitor.com] They even oppose wind power out at sea - Nantucket sound. http://www.nesea.org/publications/NESun/cape_controversy.html [nesea.org] Why? Because it's development and they hate ALL development. They always have some objection.
The irony is that we cannot address global warming BECAUSE of the opposition to environmentalists. Indeed if we are to use electric cars we are going to need many more (non carbon emitting) power stations which the experimentalists fight against tooth and nail.
And then I am always amazed by how so many people seem to forge that China is the number one emitter now and that India will soon be number two. If you cannot get these countries on board you are wasting your time. So while the EU impoverishes itself trying to reduce its carbon emissions by 1% China happily adds 10 times that every year anyway.
Re:I don't buy it... (Score:5, Interesting)
You're right. Here's some math:
250g water in a cup of tea.
Specific heat of water = 4186 J/kg/(degree C). (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Specific_heat_capacity [wikipedia.org]).
80 Celsius degree change from room temperature to boiling.
To boil a teacup's worth of water, therefore it takes ~80 kJ.
For this to be twice the energy consumed with one search, that's ~40 kJ per search.
If a search takes Google about 100 ms, that means Google would be using 400 kW while responding to your search. That feels like it's about 3 orders of magnitude too high. It's possible that the original researchers got Calories and kCal confused.
Re:Mod Up (Score:3, Interesting)
Which are more valuable to our overall environment? A few less cubic feet of CO2, or a few more salmon, a couple of ducks, some crayfish and a sturgeon?
I would say the former. Increased levels of greenhouse gases will have a far more global consequences and cause global damage than building a few damms here and there. The power has to be generated somewhere. IMHO it's a sensible and logical choice to trade local landscape change for global climate change.
Re:Wrong Comparison (Score:4, Interesting)
That is extremely doubtful. 99% of the time, you would not do that. It isn't like we used to run to the library every time we wondered, say, who "sarah palin" was. (Top search for 2008.) In most cases, we just remained ignorant.
Unlikely numbers (Score:2, Interesting)
I don't buy these numbers. Assuming the summary is correct and one search uses as much energy as boiling half a cup of water, then the total energy dissipated is;
W=delta_T*specific_energy*mass
Which for water gives (assuming 80 degrees of temperature difference and 75g of water, or about half a small cup of tea);
80*4.18*75=25kJ
A few google searches I just did took on average 0.2 seconds each, as reported by google.
This would give a power draw of 125kW, for just running the services that handled my single request!
Now, I must say that I don't now a lot pertaining to how much power google's servers draw, and of course running the search engine servers ism't enough, google needs to update it's database and do lots of other maintanence. All in all this strikes me as far too much.
Does anyone happen to have any real knowledge about this?
Oh brother (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:How long should I hold my breath? (Score:3, Interesting)
Assuming 0.04 g of C02 per exhalation (about average), 12 breaths per minute (reasonable resting rate), about 162 days.
The first few minutes are the hardest. After that it's easy.
No, it wouldn't (Score:4, Interesting)
The Eco nuts don't really care about saving the environment. They are basically just whiners. You'll notice that what they love to do is point out problems. Well that's easy because there is a problem with everything. EVERYTHING has a cost. Doesn't matter what it is, there is a cost, a tradeoff, to everything. So it is pretty easy to just pick out the cost of everything and scream about it. Much harder is to actually be constructive and come up with solutions. That means evaluating different options, figuring out the relative costs, including indirect costs, and then choosing the best combination. That's not what these people are interested in. They just want to hate on everything. So no matter what you do, they'll not be happy about it.
Re:Wrong Comparison (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Wrong Comparison (Score:2, Interesting)
Everybody would love to curb greenhouse gas emissions and save the planet except they don't want to foot the bill for it... and some can't. Hybrid cars have only been popular because the price of gas went up. Electric and Hybrids have been around for a while and haven't caught on. Few people are willing or able to make the investment.
For the record, I do my tea in a microwave and I ride the bus (except for grocery shopping). I also turn off the lights when I'm the only one home (unless I'm reading). However, this won't keep me from using my computer. And if you're saying "well yeah, I wouldn't expect that"... that's what your whole post says. Everybody is going to try not to be wasteful. I'm sure if people knew that microwaving their tea was better for the environment and probably for their wallet, they'd do it... but not even you have cut your tea out completely.
Trust me, you aren't the only one who cares, it just makes you feel better to think you do.
Re:Mod Up (Score:4, Interesting)
Further, you missed the whole point of my statements. The immediate changes might be mostly local, but have far-reaching consequences. (Bought any salmon in the store lately? How about caviar? Lumber?) Further (as someone else mentioned), dams have a significant carbon footprint! What happened to all the land that was flooded when the dam was put in? In most cases it was forested or at least green. Not so once it's flooded.
Re:Wrong Comparison (Score:3, Interesting)
And if you're saying "well yeah, I wouldn't expect that"... that's what your whole post says.
I'm not even sure what you're saying I'm saying, so I can't confirm or deny that I'm actually saying it.
Trust me, you aren't the only one who cares, it just makes you feel better to think you do.
Where did I say I was the only one that cares? Obviously people care. They wouldn't be taking all these measure,s as half-assed as they are, if they didn't care. My point is simply that the measures that people do take seem to mostly about convincing themselves that they are indeed doing something.
This is sort of like people who know they need to make lifestyle changes in order to stay alive, and just can't do it. I used to know a guy with multiple health issues that should have motivated him to make a lot of basic changes, including giving up smoking. But he didn't do that. He claimed that he was doing a bunch of stuff (herbal remedies among other things) that made that unnecessary.
He died of course. Did he not care about dying? Of course not. He just found it easier to con himself than to make the necessary changes. And I'm afraid we're all a bit like him.
Re:Good Lord... (Score:3, Interesting)
About the only thing I can think of that might lead to a hunter-gathering situation would be a full scale nuclear war.
Even that's a tough one. Why would a full scale nuclear war destroy our knowledge of agriculture? It's been around for 10,000 years or so. It wouldn't scale as well without modern technology but it would still support a larger population base than a hunter/gatherer lifestyle.
Re:An old email relating to carbon footprint of da (Score:4, Interesting)
He did point out this is an apples-to-oragnes comparison. The flight calculations considered only fuel. The IT calculations were wider in scope (power, manufacture, various infrastructure).
Airlines actually do not fly jets in the most fuel-efficient manner possible. There is a cost index calculation they perform that takes into account just about the entire airline infrastructure that dictates how they fly their planes. Flying slower saves fuel, but it costs more to pay the flight crew, increases time on the aircraft (maintenance and lifetime is based on hours of flight), and ties up the plane longer (which might in the aggregate require more planes to cover the routes). The result is they actually fly planes fairly close to their maximum speeds (the big exception would be on very long routes - where the added range could make the difference in needing one more leg). On a per-passenger basis an airliner is about as fuel-efficient as an SUV - so it shouldn't be surprising that fuel is only one of many costs that need to be considered.
I suspect that all those other costs also have substantial carbon footprints associated with them. I wouldn't be surprised if the fuel only represents maybe half of the carbon cost of a flight. It is just very dramatic to think about 50,000kgs of diesel going up in smoke.
Re:Wrong Comparison (Score:3, Interesting)
Raising the minimum legal mileage for new cars by one MPG would be a much, much bigger change than me riding a bike to work every day.
Especially if you take something fuel efficient to work, because riding a bicycle has about the same energy footprint as driving a small hybrid car or riding a small motorcycle [templetons.com]. That is, unless you were going to exercise anyway and don't do your other exercise because you used your bike to get somewhere. Or if you subsist entirely off low energy food, like you only eat soy beans you buy in 50-lb bags from a local farmer. But if you eat like regular people, and you have to replace the calories you expend peddling a bike, then the very high energy cost of the food in a standard US (I know, I'm assumming you're an American, but it's not very different for most of the first world) diet adds up to about as much energy use (and green-house gas emissions) as just driving something with high fuel efficiency.
To "Anonymous Coward" (Score:3, Interesting)
Other articles to which I have linked are also by scientists who worked on those very same climate reports that have been cited by the UN and other "warmers"... irresponsibly and incorrectly. And the articles cite a number of peer-reviewed reports that have appeared in reputable journals. Your statement that my evidence did not include same merely indicates that you did not actually read the material I made available to you.
The part of my post about problems with peer review had to do with the PRIOR discussion that the old post was a part of. I did not use it to make excuses as you claim. In fact, it had no relevance to the current discussion whatever. I am frankly amazed that you did not realize this. That was a link to an OLD post of mine, 6 months or so old. I was not about to re-type those links merely to put them in the current discussion. Other statements I made in that post are also completely irrelevant to what has been discussed here. Generally, I credit slashdot readers with enough intelligence to separate the wheat from the chaff. Obviously, you got some chaff in your eyes.
Regardless of that, since you did read the old post, why did you apparently not see the part in which I wrote that some of the sources might well be biased? I did clearly state as much. However, I also offered the caveat: sources of contradictory information are similarly biased. I was merely trying to offer an alternative view, and show that it did indeed have some validity (and it does). And not all the sources are biased by any means, many of them are quite reputable (again, look at the scientists who describe their own experiences with the IPCC).
If you feel "the evidence clearly points in support of greenhouse global warming", then you haven't done your homework, which is precisely what I was pointing out here. In order to make a statement like that, it is clear that you did not even read all the material that I made available to you. Further, it completely ignores the inverse correlation of warming with sunspot activity, which is a much stronger correlation than greenhouse gases could ever pretend to be, or other possible causes that have greater credibility. You also ignore the reports (again, by reputable sources) that have been claiming that the "evidence" presented by the "greenhouse warmers" has largely been faked or exaggerated.
Why do you think the UN retracted, just one year later, the conclusion of that original Assessment Report that got all the "warmers" so up in arms? Do you think they made the retraction arbitrarily? Because they had all the evidence they needed, but wanted to just "get along" with everybody else? Not fucking likely. They retracted their original conclusion in the face of well-supported accusations of irresponsible science, distortion of data, conclusions that did not follow the evidence, and yes, in some cases, even outright fraud.
The UN retracted their original conclusion because they DID NOT actually have evidence to back up their claims. They DID NOT have data that withstood the claims of fraud by other scientists. They DID NOT publish conclusions that were actually justified by the science they referenced. As the very scientists who gathered that data themselves testified, publicly.
While I agree with many of your statements above, your kn