An article published Sunday in The Times of London made the dramatic claim that two Google searches emit the same amount of CO2 as boiling a kettle of tea. But flaws in the widely-cited story have put the paper in, er, hot water.
The Harvard physicist quoted in the article said he never singled out Google. And the search giant countered by saying the figure was many times too high, with the techie explanation:
Together with other work performed before your search even starts (a typical search) amounts to 0.0003 kWh of energy per search, or 1 kJ. For comparison, the average adult needs about 8000 kJ a day of energy from food, so a Google search uses just about the same amount of energy that your body burns in ten seconds.
If the rebuttals are right, it’s comforting news for search junkies the world over. My Google Web History revealed 90 searches yesterday alone, or—if the article was correct—45 kettles of tea.
Still, it would be good to know exactly how much carbon dixide people burn daily googling Britney Spears or Bristol Palin’s baby name. Then again, it might just be depressing.
—Nikki Gloudeman
