Google Search Costs Half A Milliliter Of Water in Energy Each Time

The Independent:

A special report entitled "Where water meets watts" from the international organization the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) examines the relationship between water and energy. The report calculates that a single Google search requires half a milliliter of water in energy...

Read the whole story: The Independent

Comments

[Bike Commuter]

01:15 PM on 07/22/2010

This story is ridicuIous. It is the unverified repeating of stories like this that leads to urban legends.

That statement "half a milllimeter of water in energy" has no meaning. Water is not used to measure energy.

The original source for this claim is not the IEEE. The IEEE article is also not a research report. It is a "special report" just like the TV show 60 Minutes does "special reports". The writer of the IEEE article gets the info from a blog about water.
The original source: www.watercrunch.com/2010/04/how-much-water-is-consumed-for-google.html

As you can see from the source, the water number does not reference the amount of energy used by a search. It references the amount of water that would typically be used while generating the same amount of power using traditional generation methods (like coal). Of course, since Google uses solar power (and now wind power) for much of its electricity, the calculation doesn't apply to their searches at all.

The original blog was just attempting to show how water is used in ways we don't realize, including power generation. The IEEE article was trying to make the same point. Even that point is a bit misleading since power plants generally recycle their water, but at least it makes sense. Unfortunately when such stories get picked up by writers who are scientifically iIIiterate, the result is meaningless and misleading information.

[PRONESE]

11:05 AM on 07/05/2010

Logging off now!
R/ PRONESE

[Steve1289]

01:54 PM on 07/04/2010

The IEEE is just a Google Hater. They probably have share in Microsoft and they want people to start using Bing. What does Google have to do with it anyways? Isn’t you computer using energy just by having it on?!? There is no reason to single out a company like that. I wonder how much energy is used for each Facebook post and each Tweet?

[JGatsby]

10:56 AM on 07/04/2010

Does anyone have a link to the actual IEE report? I didn't see a link in the Independent article and a google search didn't turn it up.

[Sok Vanrithy]

10:24 AM on 07/04/2010

Really! if it is true, I can only say that the internet become more and more popular especially for searching in Google. This cost 0.5 milliliter per search, It seem to be much if we count for global search that how many search per second? Yet, I still say it is no problem compare to our daily activities because you can get information form the search.

[there is no truth]

03:28 AM on 07/04/2010

this just in...

the amount of water in energy on bs topics such as this is a half a milliliter as well. that being the case, all huff post readers are now asked to conserve by drinking their own urine!
why this drivel?
for goodness sake! please give me the news in the world we are trying to survive in...

oh my god! look!

it's bigfoot!

[Benover de Viros]

08:54 PM on 07/03/2010

Spare me with the smoke blowing, just stop bp toxic dump in the great lakes.

[liveandlearn]

10:42 PM on 07/04/2010

tell me about "bp toxic dump in the great lakes."

[ThinkCreeps]

02:47 AM on 07/05/2010

Google?

[GetoffMylawn]

01:44 PM on 07/03/2010

How does that translate to Mojo?

[JasonMcl]

07:17 PM on 07/03/2010

Roger Ebert is that you?

[General Public]

05:49 AM on 07/03/2010

If Google uses up enough water we can use it to drain the oceans of water and finally fix the BP oil spill. Face it: it's the only way to stop the oil spill. Start Googling!

[doneit]

02:10 AM on 07/03/2010

The Electrical and Electronics Engineers should use their time in getting us the right batteries to power our homes for about 0.50 cents per day. We are not interested in trivial information. http://www.panarumba.com

[ThinkCreeps]

02:37 AM on 07/04/2010

And once they're done with that, I'd like my moonbeam-powered chariot please.

[wilray]

01:26 AM on 07/03/2010

I didn't realize Google use water for its searches, but isn't it dangerous to mix water with electricity?

[joeyc]

12:19 AM on 07/03/2010

That pales in comparison to ur toilet. May I ask--what is the energy footprint of a t u r d?

[Faust Part 3]

05:01 AM on 07/03/2010

Agree. Everyone concerned with climate change should consider their back yard.

[amdezurik]

07:36 AM on 07/03/2010

how tall is booshit?

[jae1227]

09:47 PM on 07/02/2010

Extremely misleading article. How it is words makes is sound like it is comparing mass of water to energy using the mass-energy equivalent equation, E=mc^2. Being that I am an nuclear engineer, I instantly wanted to calculate how much energy each Google search was, assuming theses false pretenses. E=mc^2 so 0.5 mL of H2O = 0.5mg = 5*10^-7kg. ( 5*10^7 kg)*(299 792 458 m / s)^2 = 4.493776 J = 12 482.6944 kilowatts hours. An average household uses 8,900 kilowatt-hours a year. 12482/8900 = 1.4. How the title is worded, that mean, each google search uses the same amount of energy needed to supply 1.4 houses with electricity for a year. Clearly the author did not take in physics in college.

[MarauderF]

11:47 PM on 07/02/2010

This post is spot on (4.5E10 J btw). This article is misleading and stupid. If we were actually turning half ml of water into pure energy it would likely power google for a couple days. That's the only way water ever disappears... otherwise the atoms are always present, and most likely the entire molecule.

If they're talking about hydroelectric displacement then it doesn't even make sense, since they get their energy from coal.

1 google search takes about as much energy as is gained by your solar watch in a few seconds.

[jae1227]

12:50 AM on 07/03/2010

Yeah I forgot the exponent on the joules figure but it does still equal 12.5MWh.

You are right about the hydroelectric part because energy/joules is in the unit N*m. W=F*d so the displacement of the water would produce more electricity the greater is is displaced.

If the title was referring to a real hydroelectric dam like Hoover Dam it still would not make much sense. Hoover Dam has a flow rate of 650000 L/s that is 6.5E8 mL/s. That means that the Hoover Dam could handle 1.3 billion searches per second. I have read that Google only does around 250 million searches in one DAY.

[JasonMcl]

07:39 PM on 07/03/2010

The physics are strong with you two.

[Iwpach]

09:43 PM on 07/02/2010

Half a millimeter over what area?
volume units are cubic meter sub-units or liters
That is bogus if you don't give the area or the volume.

[Muno]

10:55 PM on 07/02/2010

"Milliliter" not Millimeter.

[morris111]

07:11 PM on 07/02/2010

I don't care.

[poster1122]

08:46 PM on 07/02/2010

Probably because you live in the West. But water resources are getting increasingly scare in large parts of the world, and as their energy needs increase, they'll have to choose between development and having enough drinking water for their people. Assuming they choose to have enough drinking water, that could seriously curb their ability to develop technologically.

Here in the west, the likely result would be to drive up water prices. Or to develop energy resources that are not water intensive. It also means that there are real problems associated with using biofuels (which are the most highly water-intensive) that will have to be resolved.

[MarauderF]

11:49 PM on 07/02/2010

Water isn't disappearing. Water doesn't create energy unless you damn it up, and even then the water doesn't disappear. You can irrigate it for other uses, but the water will still not magically disappear from the planet.

[KPinSEA]

12:55 AM on 07/03/2010

Step one: quit having so many kids, they all use water. And energy. And food.