Energy cost of a Google search or a Tweet? It is not negligible !!

[nonoLeRobot]

Should check how true it is, but the energy cost of 2 google searches would correspond to boiling an electric kettle !!!

It is not impossible but then it is completely uncorrelated, with our impressions. I imagine the number of people who googled to see if it was better a thermos of coffee for the day when in theory it would be better not to take care of it ...

It's quite dizzying, but we have to see that if we did not do that, we would do something else often much worse. Indeed the net provides services much more effectively than by other means. But it is true that it is a pity that we do not realize at what cost this happens ....

http://www.lemonde.fr/technologies/arti ... 51865.html

[dirk pitt]

we have understood that it is not the demand for time that such consumes energy but the maintenance in permanent operation of all web data centers around the world.
it is by dividing the total consumption of all these centers by the average number of requests that we arrive at this figure.
These data centers consume all the more because they have to be cooled
each Watt spent in hardware is spent once more to air-conditioned the building that houses it.

[Christophe]

We have already talked about it it seems to me and it was not so high! Google has roughly 500 servers so obviously it "costs" ...

And Google is more than a search engine: it also provides other services ...

But to reason correctly, as you clearly specify, you have to compare this value to "before the internet" ... in other words: how much econologically the info that you find in 30 seconds on the internet would cost you thanks to google without internet and google c ie by doing a few hours of paper research and having to go to the library?

Something that the world journalist does not do except in the last sentence, for me, it is a false debate therefore ...

Anyway, this obsession with "all CO2" is starting to binge on me: CO2 should not hide other problems and monopolize environmental problems!

[Elec]

Anyway, this obsession with "all CO2" is starting to binge on me: CO2 should not hide other problems and monopolize environmental problems!

I completely agree with you Christophe.
To focus too much on CO2 (which is however a big problem), we tend to neglect the scarcity of water resources, to forget the erosion of biodiversity etc.

Suppose that the user’s google query drops it on econology. Since it will find quality information to improve its carbon footprint, the 7 grams of CO2 linked to this request will be largely compensated;)

Note that Google plans to supply its servers with electricity from wave energy. The servers would then be shipped on boats off California. Cooling with sea water from the servers, resulting in lower consumption. We would then have requests with very low carbon impact.

Google Floats Idea of ​​Wave Powered Data Center
http://earth2tech.com/2008/09/08/google ... ta-center/

Floats Google Wave-Powered Data Center Concept
http://www.matternetwork.com/2008/9/goo ... d-data.cfm

[Christophe]

What about energy consumption per Google search in 2021? I imagine, given the growth of Google queries since 2009, that if it was still a cup of coffee ... well Google will consume more than all of humanity !!

Otherwise in 2020, a tweet on Twitter is, it seems, 90 Joules ...

This is less than the figures announced in 2009 for Google but it remains a lot ...

[Exnihiloest]

Should check how true it is, but the energy cost of 2 google searches would correspond to boiling an electric kettle !!!
...

Let's check.
A kettle, say 2KW for 2 min. Google: 6,9 billion requests per day, or 6.9 * 10 ^ 9 * 2 * 2 * 365 / (60 * 24) = 7 TWh per year.

Google is said to have consumed 12,2 TWh in 2019, so the order of magnitude is it. Except that no, because Google is not just the search engine, there are all the other services. I think youtube consumes a lot more than the search engine. As for bitcoin mining, it's 8 times Google + Facebook!