Google Greener than Cheeseburgers

There’s been plenty of debate these last few years about the impact the internet has had on the  environment. Green campaigners say the added use of computers and technology has had a massive detrimental effect whereas others believe that although the internet uses a large amount of energy, it’s actually saving money by transferring energy from other sectors.

Google is an easy target for people concerned over energy usage. In the past people have even gone as far as making darker versions under the idea of saving on the dubious extra energy cost involved in displaying a white background rather than dark. Today though, Google has fought back a little with a rather interesting bit of number crunching that puts the use of Google in perspective with more tangible, everyday devices.

Senior Vice President of Google, Urs H̦lzle, has written a post on the official Google blog which states that although IT emissions are growing, overall energy consumption has been reduced by the use of Google and Рpresumably Рother similar search engines and the use of the net in general.

The research on the blog shows some interesting information, including the fact that the energy to make and produce a cheeseburger for sale is the same as that used for around 15,000 Google searches Рnot bad in terms of energy efficiency. H̦lzle also believes that technologies like video conferencing and email have greatly cut down on emissions used for travelling.

Even without the maths most of can clearly see where the logic applies. The idea of just ‘driving down’ somewhere to ‘take a look’ has been greatly reduced by the internet and anyone who works in an office will know just how much time can be saved by using email and video conferencing. Still, you might want to take those figures with a small pinch of salt considering they came from Google themselves, not an independent firm!

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