One Google search produces 7 grams of CO2. Reading this site produces 0 grams.

Posted by on Jan 12, 2009 in News | 3 comments

According to this BBC News article, the Internet’s carbon footprint is bigger than the footprint of the airlines. A typical Google search produces about 7 grams of CO2 according to the article. Google was quick to reply that one Google search produces as little as 0.2 grams.

Reading an article on this website produces 0 (zero) grams of CO2. :-) (Not counting your power usage) Hetzner, the German hosting company I use, uses 100 percent carbon dioxide-free and environmentally friendly hydro-generated energy.

3 Comments

  1. George Bridgeman
    January 12, 2009

    Sorry to be picky, but you should have chosen the right figures for your title.

    The 7g of CO2 for a Google search includes the energy used by the client computer. The 0g for reading your site doesn’t. Google claim they only emit 0.2g of CO2 at their end per search. So your title should have read “One Google search produces 0.2 grams of CO2. Reading this site produces 0 grams.”, which isn’t quite so dramatic!

    It’s the client machines (and monitors especially) which produce so much CO2. Good to see you’ve got a very green hosting provider though.

    George.

  2. Serge Jespers
    January 12, 2009

    You are right… But Google’s response came about an hour after I posted this. So I added Google’s response afterwards.

  3. Jonathan Dingman
    January 12, 2009

    According to Google’s official say on this matter, a single Google search produces 0.2 grams of CO2.

    So even running 20 queries a day, you’ still only going to be a 4 grams of CO2 usage, on Google’s side of things.

    In the larger scheme of things, Google.org just invested $45 million into cleaner energy.

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