The Environmental Impact of Google searches

A typical Google search generates about 7g of CO2, Boiling a kettle generates about 15g, pointed out Dr. Alexander Wissner-Gross, Physicist at Harvard University. So according to Dr. Alexander performing two Google searches will generate about the same amount of carbon dioxide as boiling a kettle for a cup of tea.

According to Times online's article: "More than 200m internet searches are estimated globally daily, the electricity consumption and greenhouse gas emissions caused by computers and the internet is provoking concern. A recent report by Gartner, the industry analysts, said the global IT industry generated as much greenhouse gas as the world’s airlines - about 2% of global CO2 emissions."

Up to now, Google is secretive about its energy consumption and carbon footprint. Data centers are one of the most energy-intensive facilities that exists and Google operates huge data centers all over the world consuming a big amount of power. On the other hand, google's explaination says that obviously in the quantified amount of energy is also included the one used by your personal computer which is higher than the one used by the search engine to answer your query. The company said that one Google search is about 0.2 grams of CO2.

For further information here is Dr. Alexander's website called co2stats, and here a more deep description of the research.

"Do you think they'll melt us down?"
C-3PO