Google searching not eco-friendly?

From The Times:

Performing two Google searches from a desktop computer can generate about the same amount of carbon dioxide as boiling a kettle for a cup of tea, according to new research.

While millions of people tap into Google without considering the environment, a typical search generates about 7g of CO2 Boiling a kettle generates about 15g. “Google operates huge data centres around the world that consume a great deal of power,” said Alex Wissner-Gross, a Harvard University physicist whose research on the environmental impact of computing is due out soon. “A Google search has a definite environmental impact.”

This is becoming a material issue - with 200m searches a day globally, and assuming c 0.1 kWh (Kilowatt hours) per kettle boiled, thats c 10m kWh consumed per day, or c 3,650m kWh per annum. Now the average person in Britain consumes about 8,000 kWh per annum, so that's equivalent to the energy consumption of about 450,000 people per annum - roughly the population of Liverpool, or Edinburgh, or Manchester (or Boston, Seattle or Washington if you are American, though the US per capita energy usage is far higher)

The Times notes that 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. To give you a comparison datum, 2% is about the CO2 output share of the entire UK.

Update - Google claims here that each search is about 0.0003 kWh, which over 200m searches is c 21,000 kWh per annum - or the energy consumption of a village of about 2,700 souls. That sounds somewhat on the low side given the sheer size of their infrastructure, ie (assuming their data is correct) there is a lot of non-direct search activity that Google also has to power up. We would thus assume its all that historical data about YOU that they keep - the EU is on the right track therefore, making Google let go of your data history will help save the planet.

Update II - I've been reading the "discussion" today on this (see here) and it is quite worrying - there is very little factual analysis. Google's numbers are accepted even less critically than the original even though, as we showed above, they are probably being "economical" with the truth (ie quoting only the direct search component data). Many of the recent posts seem to be more intent on dissing the original researcher (who admittedly also has an Agenda, having started a Green Net Monitoring company) than trying to ascertain the real facts involved.

The Times piece brings some real "greenweb" issues to light, but there seems to be little willingness to debate it rationally. Ah, the benefits of Citizen Media