1. In conducting what was most likely a highly suspect study (as you rightly state).

2. Was used by his PC to write the ‘findings’

3. In related telephone calls and emails promoting his ‘findings’

4. Used by the BBC (and other media) in broadcasting it.

5. In the resulting Google searches by people hoping to expose it for the nonsense it is by finding a well reasoned post such as this. (as well as the re-posting on both side of the argument to a multitude of blogs)

6. By the time I spent writing this comment!

I’m sure there must be plenty of steps – but I think I’ve made my point. Puts it into perspective doesn’t it.

Google have stated that the power used in their datacentre is negligable compared to the power used by your home PC. I.E your own PC would consume more power to complete the search than Google’s datacenters do.

This makes sense, as even though they have hundreds of thousands of servers – and all will be more powerful than the average home PC – they are all processing millions of searches. So the power used per individual search is minute.

However, think about this, if you didn’t use Google to find the information you are looking for quickly, you would quickly consume significantly more energy trying to find the information by other means. Finding stuff on the internet would take a lot longer… thus meaning your PC is in use longer, you’re using more processing power etc.. etc..

… oh dear… surely by the time i’ve finished writing this comment I’ve consumed enough energy to boil 20 odd kettles!

(I don’t think so!).

Cheers,
Liam

I wondered if they were factoring in every computer between yours and the google machine and thinking you were using them exclusively.