Thursday, January 15th 2009

By jeff green

I’m holding my breath to write this green report. Not figuratively, but quite literately in fact. It’s all in an effort to offset my Google searches to write this article, because recent research out of Harvard University estimates that the simple act of one Google search generates 7g of Carbon Dioxide (CO2). This makes two Google searches equivalent to boiling a kettle for a cup of tea. With 200 million Google searches a day, that’s a lot of tea. Earl Grey okay with everyone?

Reported on the TimeOnline in the UK version, Alex Wissner-Gross, a Harvard University physicist, has unveiled only part of his continuing research on the effects computers have on the environment. He cites Google’s extensive network and large (and largely secret) data bases that are utilized in a single Google search. With computers as a frequent alternative to other, presumably more environmentally harmful resources, like paper, this certainly complicates things. The some 200 million daily searches must add up annually, and Wissner-Gross estimates that the CO2 footprint left by the IT industry as a whole is as equal to 2 per cent of total CO2 emissions on the globe. By contrast, that roughly equals the world’s airline industry.

However, Google made waves last year on its patent application for off-shore data centers—essentially floating servers that are far enough off shore that they wouldn’t face taxes, or at least fewer of them, and also combining the cooling savings that the sea water could provide with wave power generation. There is speculation on possible decommissioned cargo-ships that are moored in ports as possible starting locations. Furthermore, they have suggested making wave farms that harness the natural wave energy, possible powering the floating data centers themselves.

The power and cooling required is the main source of the striking carbon footprint, but these early actions by Google suggests they are addressing the issue, if not strictly for an overhead cost purpose.

Perhaps as costs continue to mount for companies we will see creative solutions on the environmental side of things. Although the primary goal will be energy savings, the secondary gain may be a shift in collective thought. 

This also gives more strength to the carbon tax idea that seems to have been lost in tough economic times. As the cost of environmentalism goes down, the industry responds. As for now, there is plenty of tea to go around.

Tags: boiling water, emissions, Internet