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Alarmed by claims about Google searches
Leo Hickman, Guardian
Alarmed by claims that two Google searches produce as much C02 as boiling a kettle, Leo Hickman finds out how to save energy when using home computers.
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Internet users got their ethernet cables in a twist this week when they learned that just two Google searches could emit as much carbon dioxide into the atmosphere as a kettle boiling enough water for a cup of tea. A Harvard physicist, Alex Wissner-Gross, was reported as saying he had calculated that each search produced 7g of CO2, due to the huge number of energy-hungry servers and data centres used by the internet giant. It might not sound a lot, but when you consider that more than 200m Google searches are made every day it soon adds up. Over a year, it broadly compares to the output of a nation such as Laos.
Many suspected the figure was wildly overcooked and Google itself responded by releasing its own calculations that put the carbon footprint of a search query at 0.2g of CO2. The search firm stated that the energy needed for each search averaged at 0.0003kWh, or 1 kilojoule, which is about the same as the average adult body burns in 10 seconds. The plot thickened when Wissner-Gross claimed he never used the kettle comparison, but he still failed to explain the discrepancy other than to say his research will be published soon.
However, the story helped to shine a light on the wider issue of how much energy our computing consumes – and how we might reduce the resulting, ever-growing, emissions.
In 1965, when computers needed reinforced concrete foundations to support their weight, the founder of Intel, Gordon E Moore, famously observed that the processing power of computers was doubling every two years. Moore’s Law, as it is known, has remained more or less constant over the last four decades.
This has proved a boon for those wanting, say, ever more complex computer games, or to maintain huge databases, but it has become a headache for those trying to minimise the amount of power used by computers.
(15 January 2009)
At Gristmill, Joseph Romm says Keep on Googling.
Growth in Energy Use Could Drop 22 Percent by 2030 Under Right Conditions: Report
Greener Buildings, GreenBiz
PALO ALTO, Calif. — With the help from efficiency programs, energy users in the U.S. could reduce the growth rate of consumption by 22 percent in the next 20 years — a reduction equivalent to 14 times the electricity used annually in New York City, according to a new report.
The report released yesterday by the Electric Power Research Institute said the estimated reduction is a realistic expection provided that “key barriers” are addressed.
EPRI said the research and analysis conducted for its report took into consideration “a forecast of likely customer behavior, taking into account existing market, societal and attitudinal barriers as well as regulatory and program funding barriers,” in arriving at the assessment of achievable reduction in electricity consumption. Such barriers “could reflect customers’ resistance to doing more than the minimum required or a rejection of the attributes of the efficient technology,” EPRI said.
The estimated savings reflects a slowing of the annual growth rate of consumption — projected at 1.07 percent by the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) in its 2008 Annual Energy Outlook — to 0.83 percent, EPRI said.
… The report and its executive summary may be downloaded from EPRI at no charge
(15 January 2009)
It’s Flue Season
Eric De Place, Worldchanging
Economic stimulus through energy efficiency.
Here’s your economic stimulus idea for today: condensing flue gas waste heat recovery.
With a name like that, it has to be good. And it is. It’s precisely the sort of off-the-shelf technology that’s ripe for stimulus investment. The investments could yield near-term jobs, as well as savings that would begin immediately and compound into the future.
(8 January 2009)
