Ignore the media hype and keep Googling - The energy impact of web searches is very LOW

[bananas]

Joe Romm writes:

Ignore the media hype and keep Googling — The energy impact of web searches is very LOW

Some myths are hard to kill. The Times Online “reports“:

Performing two Google searches from a desktop computer can generate about the same amount of carbon dioxide as boiling a kettle for a cup of tea, according to new research.

While millions of people tap into Google without considering the environment, a typical search generates about 7g of CO2 Boiling a kettle generates about 15g. “Google operates huge data centres around the world that consume a great deal of power,” said Alex Wissner-Gross, a Harvard University physicist whose research on the environmental impact of computing is due out soon.

The overhyping of the internet’s energy use goes back a decade, pushed by two right-wing deniers, Mark Mills and Peter Huber. They were actually using their easily-refuted analysis to argue against climate restrictions — I kid you not. In this 1999 press release from the laughably-named denier group, the “Greening Earth Society,” Mills says:

While many environmentalists want to substantially reduce coal use in making electricity, there is no chance of meeting future economically-driven and Internet-accelerated electric demand without retaining and expanding the coal component.

I ended up writing a major report debunking this myth and then testifying in front of the Senate Commerce committee (i.e. John McCain) and the House on the subject. Jon Koomey and others at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) did even more work debunking this nonsense (click here for everything you could possibly want to know on the subject).

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more: http://climateprogress.org/2009/01/12/internet-google-carbon-footprint-alex-wissner-gross-myth/

[liberalmuse]

1. Thanks for debunking that crock of shit.

Jeeze, they'll stop at nothing.

[Canuckistanian]

2. And what about this "Blackle" idea?

Does turning off pixels on my screen conserve that much?

[madokie]

3. I don't think so

an lcd screen has a back light and that light is what uses most of the power and it has to be on to see the things that aren't blacked out so I would say that the power usage would be close to the same either way.