ViralPatel.net

This week the tech world was set on ablaze when this article in The Times of London reported that every Google search query contributes in 7 gm of CO₂ to the atmosphere and this is equivalent to half the amount of energy needed in heating a tea kettle. The article is a study of physicist Alex Wissner-Gross who is a MIT graduate and now at Harvard University.

No sooner did the article get published, than the tech blogs and news site like Techmeme and Techcrunch started covering it with full pace.

Yesterday, Google has responded by knocking off the claim on their official blog. Google has revealed the overall energy consumption per search query to be 0.0003 kWh of energy per search, or 1 kJ. In teams of CO₂ this is equivalent to 0.2 grams of CO₂ and not 7 grams as it was previously stated by Alex.

Google may have saved their hat by revealing new calculation but this has raised an important issue of Global Warming and impact of Internet and Web technologies on it. As we are becoming more and more dependent of Web, our energy requirements have really increased.

Well, if Alex is to be believed, we will soon talk about our daily energy needs in terms of google search queries. e.g. My Car gives millage of 5000 google search per kilometer or I got my utility bill and the unit is $ 1 per google search query. :)