How much energy does a Google search use?  According to their number crunching at their blog, Energy and the Internet, “average query uses about 1 kJ of energy and emits about 0.2 grams of carbon dioxide.”  Not a lot for one search -  But how does searching compare to energy use for every day items?  Like a glass of Orange Juice?  Or cooking a cheesburger, driving a car, running the dishwasher?  Their engineers came up with further numbers - ”to add some context, below is data about the C02 impact of some everyday activities and items compared to Google searching:”

Activity Google Searches
CO2 emissions of an average daily newspaper (PDF) (100% recycled paper) 850
A glass of orange juice 1,050
One load of dishes in an EnergyStar dishwasher (PDF)
 5,100
A five mile trip in the average U.S. automobile 10,000
A cheeseburger 15,000
Electricity consumed by the average U.S. household in one month 3,100,000

 

This is a very interesting blog article because searches cost Google money through energy useage.  The more they can save energy, the more they can make.  They have already reduced their energy used by their servers by 50%.   Thanks to Mike Qaissaunnee for sending me this article.

Mark Viquesney