Can two Google searches really produce as much carbon dioxide as boiling enough water in an electric kettle for a cup of tea? That's what Alex Wissner-Gross, an environmental fellow at Harvard University, is claiming. "Google operates huge data centres around the world that consume a great deal of power," says Wissner-Gross in forthcoming research about the environmental impact of computing, which calculates that every Google search produces 7g of CO2. "Google are very efficient, but their primary concern is to make searches fast and that means they have a lot of extra capacity that burns energy."
It should probably be noted at this point that Wissner-Gross is also the co-founder of Enernetics, and its associated website www.CO2stats.com, which, according to the Boston Business Journal, allows "websites to get analysis of how energy-efficient they are and sells carbon offsets to help them reach a neutral status". So let's first congratulate Wissner-Gross on getting himself and his company talked about all over the internet, including here. But does his claim stack up?
Without any published data to hand it's hard to tell. All Google is saying is that it is takes the issue seriously, but that "the energy used per Google search is minimal". It adds: ""In the time it takes to do a Google search, your own personal computer will use more energy than we will use to answer your query." (If this is true, it surely makes a mockery of Wissner-Gross's claims as there's no way an average computer uses as much power as an electric kettle when it's boiling water.)
So let's do some crude sums based on what we know and what is being claimed. Google receives millions of search queries every day from all over the world. Estimates vary about quite how many queries it receives, but they seem to range from 200m up to 500m. Let's, for the sake of argument, take the top figure as a worst-case scenario.
If Wissner-Gross is correct then 3,500 tonnes of CO2 (500m x 0.000007 tonnes) are emitted every day through all of us performing Google searches. Or put another way, 1.28m tonnes a year. That's about the same as Laos emits each year, the 151st biggest emitting country in the world.
I'm torn between thinking that this sounds like an awful lot – "Shock: Google emits as much as a country!" – or whether it doesn't sound too bad, given, for right or wrong, how integral Google now is to many of our lives. What is certain is that the environmental impact of information technology as a whole is considerable and ever rising.
A widely quoted figure is that the global ICT sector produces as much CO2 each year as the global aviation industry – about 2-3% of total global emissions. It is helpful, therefore, that Wissner-Gross's claim is at least providing a needed spur to debating the ICT sector's impact, and how best to reduce it.
Ultimately, though, I suspect this particularly quotable nugget will have little impact on the searching habits of internet users. Nor should it, really. We can each monitor how much electricity our own computers use – and aim to keep it at a minimum – but it can only ever be Google's responsibility about how much power its servers and related hardware use. Perhaps there's even an argument for saying that internet searches have helped to reduce net emissions by greatly reducing the need to make physical journeys in search of information, say, a trip to the local library or bookshop?
两条Google搜索真的能产生用电水壶烧一壶茶所产生的二氧化碳?那正是Alex Wissner-Gross——一名哈佛大学环境研究员所断言的。“Google操作全球巨大的数据中心,这些数据中心消耗了大量能量。”Wissner-Gross在即将展开的关于电脑使用对环境所产生的影响的研究中说道,该研究计算出每条Google搜索产生7克的二氧化碳。“Google非常高效,但是他们最担心的是:搜索快捷了,而那就意味着他们有许多额外的精力去消耗能量了。
或许这时应注明一下,Wissner-Gross还是“能量机构”的共同创始人之一。该学会的相关网站:www.co2stats.com被波士顿商业新闻认可道:“可通过该网站得到节能水平的分析,出售碳抵消以帮助其达到平衡状态。”所以先让我们祝贺Wissner-Gross使自己和他的机构在网络上被大家谈的轰轰烈烈,包括现在这篇文章。但是他的学说真的正确吗?
没有发布任何手头的数据,这很难说它真实与否。Google只是说这学说把问题搞严重了,“每条Google搜索所消耗的能量是最小的”。它补充道:“在你搜索时候,你自己的电脑所消耗的能量要比我们回复你的答案所消耗的能量高多了。”(如果这是真的,这当然就使Wissner-Gross的学说变成了笑料,因为一台普通的电脑根本不可能消耗用电水壶烧开水所消耗的能量。)
所以让我们据我们所知的和他所声称的学说,做一些粗劣的计算。Google每天都从世界各地受到成千上万条搜索问题,虽然对于Google每天到底收到多少条问题还有分歧,但是似乎都在200万条至500万条之间。为了便于讨论,让我们取最坏的那个数据。
如果Wissner-Gross是正确的,那么每天都有3500吨(500万*0.000007吨)的CO2随着我们进行Google搜素释放出来。换言之,每年1.28万吨。那和老挝每年释放的一样——世界上第151名释放CO2最多的国家。
在这两种想法中我很难抉择:是认为这听上去真够坏的——“震撼:Google消耗的能量和一个国家一样多!”;还是觉得这听起来也不很坏,Google给我们的生活带来了许多,不论这是好是坏。但可以确定的是,信息技术所带来的环境影响是相当可观的,并且呈上升趋势.
一个广为引用的数据是全球的信息通讯技术部门每年产生的CO2和航空工业一样多——是全球放射物的2%到3%。因此,Wissner-Gross还是有帮助的,至少它产生了必要的刺激,让大家去争论信息通讯技术部门所产生的影响,使大家注意到降低这种影响有多么重要。
最后,虽然我怀疑这“可供人引用的至理名言”大概只会在网络用户的生活中产生极小的影响。当然,也不该产生什么影响。但至少我们每个人都注意到我们的电脑消耗了多少能量——并且试着使它降到最低——不过Google的用户和硬件所消耗的能量只是Google自己的责任。或许还有争论说相比真的到处去寻找信息,网络搜索还能帮助减少能量消耗呢,比如说减少了去一趟当地的图书馆或书店所消耗的能量。
1/20/2009
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