What would you rather give up? Boiling a kettle for your tea or using Google search? You might want to give up both, as boiling a kettle and doing two Google searches will actually produce almost the same amount of CO2, which is of course harmful to our environment. This was the findings of a study conducted by Harvard University physicist Alex Wissner-Gross which revealed that a search in Google yields 7g of CO2. This is half the amount of CO2 generated when boiling a kettle which is around 15g.
The reason? Google’s huge data centres located all over the world which according to the study consumes huge amount of energy everytime a user conducts a search in Google. The research has already been submitted for publication the US Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers and the author has set up a website called CO2stats.com. If you want to learn more about this organization do a Google search, and then pray that the world doesn’t end because you’ve contributed the last amount of Co2 that would lead its destruction.
So, what now? Is this the end of the web search industry? Is Google only the search engine which contributes to the production of CO2? If Google produces 7g of CO2 everytime a search is conducted, can you imagine the amount of CO2 that has already been produced by all of us since the day Google become such a huge phenomenon on the web? And can you also imagine how many more CO2 we are going to produce if we continue using Google search?
Too many question, but don’t even bother to answer them. Anyway, I’m giving up my tea habit to reduce the amount of CO2 that I contribute to the destruction of the environment.
this study is simply $hit with big S because you do not engage all the power to yourself it is paralleled to millions of users you do not engage all google equipmant for yourself during that search.
Anyway, porn is almost 50% of all internet traffic, torrents etc. that produce by rate 1000 more CO2 then Google.
Study is sensationalistic and dull.
What about other search engines? Lets accept that Google produces 7g of CO2/Search but the same amount of CO2 also generated by other search engines? Why they targeted only Google? I think they should better need to mention “Search Engines” instead of “Google”… What do you think on this?
Chaitanya,
When you’re on of the big guys, you get picked on a lot more often.
Google has learned how to take it, deal with it, and move on. They’ve been really good about being picked on and accepting i.
Surely one person’s car trip to the local library to research important topics, or the drive to the newsagent for a porno mag would generate far more CO2 than any number of armchair Google searches?
Really, the only simple way to reduce emissions is to stop doing everything we do. Otherwise we have to accept that anything we are going to use or manufacture, will produce Co2 somehow, somewhere in the chain.
Time to go and have an iced cup of tea and think on it.
thanks
تحضير
thats good
This study is crap, and refuted by Google:
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/01/powering-google-search.html
@Jonathan, you are right, Google won’t be worried on this. The report was solely intended to get a cheap publicity…
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Hi All,
I gone through the published details published above.
But I am wondered about this, as when ever we use Google Search it leads to the production of CO2.
Now question come:
How and Where:
I totally disagree with this.
If we analysed this deeply then as per the above mentioned findings the CO2 produced with the use of Google Search, but how then they have specified that Google Server has huge amount of Data which is searched and hence it produces CO2.
But this answer/justification is totally vague in my view.
>> Mechanical Gadgets
In my Opinion what ever Mechanical, Electrical or Electronic when brought into operation or “Switched On” then gets heated up and ionized the ambient gases as well.
Running of Mechanical gadgets transform electrical energy into mechanical as well as Heat energy. Now the mechanical motions of the various objects in those gadgets works against the inertia of those objects and the friction there in to maintain a momentum. It develops the wear and tear of the parts and also generates a lot of noise and vibrations. And since each and almost everything in universe except for inert gases when burn in Oxygen produces CO2 this is due to the fact that there must be some amount of carbon contained in those objects whether elements or alloys or non elements.
>> Electrical Gadgets
In Electrical Gadgets Electrical Energy is transformed into Mechanical one or vice versa.
For the former case the above reason is more applicable and for the later case (“Mechanical Energy to Electrical) we need mostly Heat Energy, which itself is justified.
Hence we need to go for Solar Energy, Wind Energy or hydro Energy.
>> Electronic Gadgets
The Electronic gadgets use very less amount of Electrical Energy for their operation as compared to Mechanical or Electrical one, for this we must be thankful to the modern advancements in Semiconductor technologies i.e. LSI, VLSI etc.
But you can see when we operate even our Electronic gadgets for some time then they gets heated up due to the continues motion of Electrons and holes across the junctions in the Semiconductor chips. This motion leads to the conduction of Electricity in them that can be altered by the amount of diffusion made there in.
When these Electronic Gadgets gets heated up they dissipates this heat energy in their ambience which is more often a plastic (made of purely Carbon) hence when it gets heated up, it’s molecules starts burning with the amount of heat energy being supplied, but this ignition is very small and hence not visible and will also not catches the fire unless heated till it’s ignition temperature.
Hence I am concluding here that: the amount of CO2 getting produced by the use so called “Google Search” is not due to that but by buy using our own PCs, as Google Search is not Hardware but Software that does physically exist.
CO here is being produced in our Monitors, System Unit, Keyboards Mouse, Wires, Connectors, Network, and Servers etc.
To avoid this production of CO2 we will only have one solution: To keep every thing switched of or to make use of materials having 0% carbon in them, that is impossible.
And second query here arises is: if 7grams of CO2 is produced for every goggle search then it means our systems are dying or melting as they are loosing 7grams for each search then if we continually run our laptops for 1000 seconds < 1hour
(if we take one sec for 1 Google search approximately) then after less than half an hour we will not find our laptops as it would have been transformed into CO2 and ash, as the weight of laptop is not going to be more than 7KG.
Hence I conclude that there is no as such production of CO2 by the use of Google Search but it is because of use of our PCs only and again the quantity of CO2 also can’t be as big as 7grams.
With Regards
Ravi Kant Sharma