The Power (Literally) Behind Google Search
Wednesday, January 14th, 2009
[Image: Flickr user Ryner12]
If you’re anything like me, you hit the Google search anywhere between 100 and 1 million times a day. And, if you’re like me, you don’t give a second thought to how much energy you use up. This article in The London Times quotes physicist Alex Wissner-Gross, who says that performing two Google searches uses up as much energy as boiling the kettle for a cup of tea.
His estimations are in part from a recent report by industry analysts Gartner Group, who said the global IT industry generated as much greenhouse gas as the world’s airlines – about 2% of global CO2 emissions.
Yikes.
