Google sees itself as an environmental role model

Google sees itself as an environmental role model
In 2010, the company Google a total of approximately 2.26 million megawatt hours of electrical energy and has implemented - including other forms of energy - causes about 1.46 million tons of CO2 emissions. Google operates the most efficient data centers and has been investing in green power; 2010 was already a quarter of the electrical energy equivalent of 2.26 billion kWh of carbon-neutral sources such as hydroelectric, wind and solar power plants.
The lion's share of energy expected to swallow at Google data centers: Including the current consumed in the office to account for over 84 percent of total CO2 emissions. Another 14 percent carry indirect emissions, such as Google's business employees and their daily journey in their respective offices or production server hardware. Less than 2 percent of its carbon dioxide emissions is to Google for heating office buildings and the street view vehicles and other activities.

Cloud services operate relatively efficiently, if one assumes as given the networks. Image: Google, despite the enormous energy needs - the equivalent of 2.26 terawatt hours correspond approximately 0.37 percent of gross electricity consumption in Germany of 604 TWh, according to Google, or 0.01 percent of the electricity produced worldwide in 2010 - Google sees itself as a pioneering green IT. The company calculates that the sending of a (wine) bottle would cause about as much CO2 emissions as one year's use of Gmail. Google calculates the one hand, while the cost of production and the bottle of wine and their transport in the filled state and on the other hand, the average Google-mail usage with a laptop that takes 30 watts of power.
Gmail is also very energetic therefore much more efficient than running your own mail server, as the provider vorrechnet elsewhere. And still other interesting comparisons are: production, packaging and shipping a single DVD allegedly causing 3 kg of CO2 emissions, for which one could look for three days with said notebook YouTube. However, Google does with all these comparisons, the operation of global communication networks ignored, thus count only the energy needs of its own data centers and the needs of users. They can also do something: A notebook is more economical than a desktop PC, a tablet or smartphone in turn more efficient than a notebook.
At the end of the long calculations, Google sees as "zero-footprint"-issuer - yes, the use of cloud services actually save energy and thus emissions. This could now join a discussion of whether the vast range of advertising-funded services not only creates demand, which would otherwise not be met. Google wants to be in any case always greener: 2012, already more than 35 percent of electrical energy from renewable sources. Insulation of the office building and other measures, including incentives for environmentally friendly, drive to the office, such as via shuttle bus or bicycle, to reduce the energy consumption further. Even the Google datacenters optimized continuously.
With another specific number, Google intends to correct a circulating for years misinformation: For the answer of 100 average search queries the search engines require at 0.03 kWh (30 watt hours) about as much energy as the operation of the aforementioned 30-watt notebook for an hour or as a 60-watt bulb in a half hours. In other words: To answer a query, the Google technology requires an average of about 1 kilo joules, that is 1000 watt-seconds. This value remains approximately the same for years, but because Google's servers are more economical, but also grows the search index. Four years ago the rumor was brought into the world that a single Google search would consume 11 watt hours - this information is therefore about a factor of 37 too high.
Google is considered the largest operator of the server world, but does not publish the exact number of his machines. It is estimated that Google operates with 900,000 to 1 million units around 3 percent of worldwide server. The energy demands of data centers is growing, albeit less rapidly than estimated a few years ago. On the other hand, some of the energy suppliers, according to reports Mainova FAZ.net that Frankfurt is already one fifth of the electrical energy flows in data centers.