Living energy efficient with Google

 How much CO2 are you generating for your Google searches?

I found this information on my google reader subscription. The Official Google Blog is basically stating that Google is doing its share in making every Google search as energy efficient as possible because:

"In terms of greenhouse gases, one Google search is equivalent to about 0.2 grams of CO2. The current EU standard for tailpipe emissions calls for 140 grams of CO2 per kilometer driven, but most cars don't reach that level yet. Thus, the average car driven for one kilometer (0.6 miles for those in the U.S.) produces as many greenhouse gases as a thousand Google searches".

And Google as an organization is:

"working with other members of the IT community to improve efficiency on a broader scale. In 2007, we co-founded the Climate Savers Computing Initiative, a group which champions more efficient computing. This non-profit consortium is committed to cutting the energy consumed by computers in half by 2010 — reducing global CO2 emissions by 54 million tons per year. That's a lot of kettles of tea".

Furthermore, Google. org, started the Climate Savers Computing Initiative. What is the Climate Savers Computing Initiative?

"Started by Google and Intel in 2007, the Climate Savers Computing Initiative is a nonprofit group of eco-conscious consumers, businesses and conservation organizations. The Initiative was started in the spirit of WWF’s Climate Savers program which has mobilized over a dozen companies since 1999 to cut carbon dioxide emissions, demonstrating that reducing emissions is good business. Our goal is to promote development, deployment and adoption of smart technologies that can both improve the efficiency of a computer’s power delivery and reduce the energy consumed when the computer is in an inactive state.

As participants in the Climate Savers Computing Initiative, computer and component manufacturers commit to producing products that meet specified power-efficiency targets, and corporate participants commit to purchasing power-efficient computing products".

Thanks to this site for these snippets of information.

Now, that leads me to - think and calculate how much CO2 emissions are generated every time I make those loads of google searches :-)

What about you?