Opening a window into the huge amounts of electricity it takes to run their data centers in countries all around the world, the search giant recently disclosed some details about its massive energy use. The company has invested in numerous green technologies and maintains that overall people around the world use less energy by carrying out searches and other operations using their services than would be possible without its existence. Hmmm….while that could be debated, here are some statistics from a NY Times article on the subject.
- Google continuously uses enough electricity to power 200,000 homes.
- With over one billion searches a day, Google’s data centers around the world continuously draw almost 260 million watts — about a quarter of the output of a nuclear power plant.
- The company calculates that average energy consumption on the level of a typical user the amount is small, about 180 watt-hours a month, or the equivalent of running a 60-watt light bulb for three hours.
- Its total carbon emissions for 2010 were just under 1.5 million metric tons, with most of that attributable to carbon fuels that provide electricity for the data centers.
- Google says that 25 percent of its energy was supplied by renewable fuels in 2010, and estimates that figure will reach 30 percent in 2011.
