Computers
A single Google query consumes as much energy as an 11-watt light bulb does in one hour
Photo by Knut
This article from tagesschau.de (German) claims that a single Google search query (taking less than a second) consumes as much energy as an 11-watt light bulb does in one hour. This number is based on the total number of servers Google is running, the total energy consumption of those servers, and the total number of search queries processed.
Rolf Kersten estimates that running a single Google query releases 6.8 grams of CO2 and consumes a bit less—2 to 8 watt-hours of energy.
(Thanks to Mareen for combing the German language publications.)
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Not too surprising, since Google processes about 20 petabytes of data per day. (A petabyte is ~1000 terabytes.) Still, I’m sure google’s servers are doing much more than just processing queries, so I think his estimation is off.
well how about the PV cells on the Google campus?
For every watt we use on the internet we save 10 watts. http://www.ecogeek.org/content/view/1409/
Photo voltaic is essentially flawed. The technology used to produce the materials right now consumes more energy than they will make up in 20 years of being in use.
Jordan, that’s an interesting information. Could you post a link with more details?
Jordan thats out of date information that has no weight to it. Googles headquarters generates 1.6megawatts of power through its solar system. The pv panels are made of a printed composite material and not silicon, which is less efficient. Although its true solar power isnt fiscally efficient on the whole as of yet, the progress in this field is growing by orders of magnitude efficiency wise.
Unfortunately Jordan can not post a link to that information, because it is a very old urban legend, completely untrue, If a solar panel will pay for itself after 20 years (which they can easily do) , then how could the manufacturer afford to pay for more than the amount of electricity it will produce PLUS the cost to actually make the panel? Any who, the title of this article is very misleading, making the reader think that just running a search will consume 11 Wh, for the 0.1 sec it takes to run a search, google would using 396000 Watts of server power! Thats about 8000 blade servers do nothing but your search in that time frame, not too likely I’d say, I could be wrong though. That number is probably coming from their total server power consumption divided by the number of searches google does, (I can’t read German)
Actually Mark you can translate German using googles translation feature!
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For every 1 watt used on the internet 10 is saved, that is complete bull. How could you even think like that? The internet is the biggest waste of energy in the world…nearly 10% of world energy consumtion is just powering the internet and the number is growing ALOT every year, there has to be a stopping point before we realize it’s just too wasteful.