HispanicBusiness

A couple of Google searches from a desktop computer generate carbon emissions nearly equal to boiling a kettle of water for a cup of tea, according to a Harvard University professor's study, which has been disputed by the Internet search provider.

The study's author, physicist Alex Wissner-Gross, has been researching the environmental impact of computing. In a published report, he said: "Google operates huge data centres around the world that consume a great deal of power. A Google search has a definite environmental impact."

A London newspaper claims that Google's search engine generates high levels of CO2 because of its mode of operation. When a search is entered, it said, the request goes to several servers competing against one another.

In response, Google let off its own steam, publishing an entry on its "Official Google Blog" titled "Powering a Google Search." Disputing the claim that one Google Internet search produces 7 grams of carbon dioxide, Urs Holzle, Google's senior vice president, operations, responds:

"In terms of greenhouse gases, one Google search is equivalent to about 0.2 grams of CO2. . . . 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."

Added Holzle: "In the time it takes to do a Google search, your own personal computer will use more energy than Google uses to answer your query."

Stressing its green-minded ways, Google stated: "We've made great strides to reduce the energy used by our data centers, but we still want clean and affordable sources of electricity for the power that we do use. In 2008 our philanthropic arm, Google.org, invested $45 million in breakthrough clean energy technologies. And last summer, as part of our Renewable Energy Cheaper than Coal initiative (RE < C), we created an internal engineering group dedicated to exploring clean energy."

In the published report, Wissner-Gross, who has set up a Web site at www.CO2stats.com, concedes Google is "very efficient, but their primary concern is to make searches fast and that means they have a lot of extra capacity that burns energy."

So the debate, like a kettle of tea, continues to boil.