A new study concludes that Google’s servers emit 7 grams of CO2 for every search. Since burning a gallon of gasoline releases about 8,880 grams of CO2 into the atmosphere, you can calculate your car’s Google-equivalent by dividing your car’s miles per gallon into 1,269 (8,880 divided by 7).
My 1986 Mazda still gets about 33 miles per gallon and I do about 40 Google searches per day, which is the equivalent of driving my car a little over 1 mile. Of course, I probably visit at least 20 web sites for every Google search I do. If each of those web servers generate as much CO2 as Google, that means my Internet usage is equal to driving 20 miles a day.
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Should we tax the Internet to reduce greenhouse gas emissions?
Does labeling CO2 a “greenhouse gas” imply that it can cause dangerous global warming?
Long before the global warming and the threat previous to global warming, global cooling, science used the term when talking about planets.
And how could that article get your attention and not the flying car? 🙂
Excuse me while I go get the paperwork filed for my IPO. EarthSearch – half the CO2 emissions of Google!
As much as I hate to start a Fox v. MSNBC battle here, I think it’s important to note that google had mad huge investments in alternative energy sources for its company. (see. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21998227/).
But O’Toole brings up a good point. Computer use and disposal has serious environmental implications. Should we be PLANNING a bit better to reduce the often toxic impacts of computers on our planet. I guess we could just let the market solve the problem (hah).
Can’t remember where I saw the stat, but I saw an estimate that by 2030, server farms for The Internets will be IIRC 30% of all emissions.
Maybe I’ll Google it to see where it came from. Ba dum BUM! Thank you, I’ll be performing all week.
DS
Should we tax the Internet to reduce greenhouse gas emissions?
Is there an emission-less method for paying such a tax?
I have not seen the study, but I’ll bet good money they are confusing the margin with the average. And it is the margin on which optimal taxes are set.
So, in answer to your question, no, taxing Google for emissions is a bad idea.
If I do a Google search for one query and then thumb through my trusty (and dusty) Funk & Wagnall encyclopedia for the next one … is that considered a carbon offset?
Ba dum BUM! Don’t forget the tip jar on your way out!
Antiplanner wrote:
“A new study concludes that Google’s servers emit 7 grams of CO2 for every search.”
Google has rejected these claims:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7823387.stm
They say that the actual amount that they are responsible for is 0.2g per search.
Server farms like these are very concerned already by the amount of power used, since every watt of power used needs to be dissipated by air conditioning. Taxing their energy consumption wouldn’t help.
The two points that come out of such a consideration are: that desktop computers use a lot of power; and that cars are not, despite the actions of politicians, the only source of CO2 emissions.
Francis King makes a good point.
Cars are the target because they have always been the target since the Environmentalist Creed was first developed during the mid-sixties.
Central planners (of all ideologies) hate cars because they set people free.
In New Zealand cars account for only 8.5% of our national consumption of fossil fuels per year.
In Australia all transport (cars, buses, trains, planes and ships) accounts for only 10.5% of the average household’s fossil fuel consumption per year.
In both countries food accounts for about 30% of household fossil fuel consumption.
So dieting would be more effective than restraints on car use. (Not suggesting it – just making a point.)
What car?
Adding … and your point being?
What if you live near Google’s server farm near the Columbia River, am I carbon neutral? 😀
“In both countries food accounts for about 30% of household fossil fuel consumption.” -Owen McShane
Probably because of the huge amounts of fossil fuels (fertilizers, petro-chemicals, fossil fuel equipment, and distance of farm from house) it takes to produce the food.
Good catch Francis – serves me right for trusting Randal’s relaying of figures.
DS
ws:
correct. We, in essence, eat oil. And corn.
DS
Central planners (of all ideologies) hate cars because they set people free.
Bullsh*t.
DS
“Central planners” who design freeways and roads seem to be exempt from criticism on this site. What’s up with that? The 45,000 miles of interstate system was designed by federal central planners. At least most urban planners are represented by their municipal or regional areas.
Re #16:
Dan,
It’s true. That’s why planners want to put the garage in the back of the house. Can you say Rosa Parks????
No, no, no: we loooooove cars from socialist countries! Trabi, da!
DS
“Central planners†who design freeways and roads seem to be exempt from criticism on this site. What’s up with that?
It’s just like Eminent Domain with this ideology: it’s bad, except when it’s not.
DS
BTW and back OT:
Joe Romm has written about this “study” that Randal likes so much:
I guess the question now is: is this post an example of ‘selection bias’ or ‘confirmation bias’?
DS
hmmm. /ol worked in preview. The middle para in the bquote is a quotation.
DS
cars are not, despite the actions of politicians, the only source of CO2 emissions.
True. Human respiration is a source of CO2 emissions. Politicians emit more than their fair share of CO2.
The term “central planners” is normally reserved for those who believe they have superior wisdom which allow them to plan the whole economy, and our lives including where we live work and play and anything else you may think of.
Someone who plans a freeway, or an office block, or an airline system is not a central planner if only because they stick to their knitting. Of course some designers (and especially architects (and I am one myself) fall into the trap of believing that because they can design a House they can design Europe.
The great Soviet Bloc was an experiment in central planning, as was Mao’s Great Leap Forward and Pol Pots games in the Killing Fields. The planning of the Interstate highway system was not.
The latest “expression” of the central planning urge is the promotion of “sustainable development”.
The end result of sustainable development is a world run by committees, meddling in every aspect of our lives.
Yes, food accounts for massive amounts of fossil fuel, even taking account our general inability to accurately measure it.
One simple exercise shows that 40% of the cost of a loaf of bread is the cost of fossil fuel.
Analysis throws up some unexpected outcomes. When some UK protectionists declared that English folk should buy home grown lamb instead of lamb from New Zealand we were able to show that driving the lamb from the supermarket to the home consumed more fossil fuel than getting the lamb from NZ to the UK and given that our farming is much more energy efficient that Euro farming (no subsidies remember) our lamb had a smaller carbon footprint than the English lamb.
All thanks to the great American (dare one say New Yorker’s) invention – the container ship, the main driver of globalisation.
The general conclusion is the price is typically the best measure of the carbon footprint. If it’s cheaper it uses less fossil fuel. If recycling was fuel efficient you would not need to force it on people.
For more on this my colleague Retzai has some useful commentary at:
Rise of high-density living a new low for Sydney –
http://www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/rise-of-highdensity-living-a-new-low-for-sydney/2009/01/13/1231608701810.html
Owen McShane Says:
January 14th, 2009 at 2:56 pm
Yes, food accounts for massive amounts of fossil fuel, even taking account our general inability to accurately measure it.
One simple exercise shows that 40% of the cost of a loaf of bread is the cost of fossil fuel.
Analysis throws up some unexpected outcomes. When some UK protectionists declared that English folk should buy home grown lamb instead of lamb from New Zealand we were able to show that driving the lamb from the supermarket to the home consumed more fossil fuel than getting the lamb from NZ to the UK and given that our farming is much more energy efficient that Euro farming (no subsidies remember) our lamb had a smaller carbon footprint than the English lamb.
All thanks to the great American (dare one say New Yorker’s) invention – the container ship, the main driver of globalisation.
The general conclusion is the price is typically the best measure of the carbon footprint. If it’s cheaper it uses less fossil fuel. If recycling was fuel efficient you would not need to force it on people.
THWM: That’s all well and good in theory, in practice it’s a lot harder.
In that we don’t a have fair open market economy.
There’s a lot perverse politics involved, for example the Koch’s funding of Mr. O’Toole’s market limiting propaganda over the years.
The world around us is very distorted.
Portland OR, once had close to 200 miles of tram lines and there is no reason other politics why it should not have still close to 200 miles of tram lines if not more.
McShane babbles:
The term “central planners†is normally reserved for those who believe they have superior wisdom which allow them to plan the whole economy, and our lives including where we live work and play and anything else you may think of.
No.
Scared, fearful, weak conservatarians use the term “central plannersâ€Â. Folks who actually do the job do not plan the whole economy and people’s lives including where they live work and play and anything else you may think of.
The general conclusion is the price is typically the best measure of the carbon footprint. If it’s cheaper it uses less fossil fuel.
Bullsh*t. This is such a puerile statement it is hard to know where to begin. There is a large literature refuting this argument from ignorance.
DS
Churchill once said that the Americans and the English are separated by a common language.
It is difficult to maintain civilised discourse with someone like Dan who does not recognise the meaning of central planner compared to regular planning, and who does not recognise the utillity of the words “general” and “typically” and who manages to revert to abuse from “babbles” onwards.
It may well be that he is a teenager who consequently knows everthing. I have been a planner since the mid sixties and can assure him both states will pass and he will be able to engage with adults – who have learned how little they know.
Thank you for sticking to your pattern, Owen. It makes it easy on my part.
Have you figured out yet why you misstated the results of the report you linked to, or why that op-ed by your colleague was based on the same false premises by which you misstated the conservation report? Of course you have.
DS
It is most unfortunate that this debate (?!) has gotten well away from adressing Randal’s simple question: “Should we tax the Internet to reduce greenhouse gas emissions?”
The simple answer, of course, is to tax greenhouse gas emissions at the point where they are emitted. If the emitter is a power station selling electricity to Google then the tax will be passed on to Google in direct proportion to how much electricity Google purchases from that power station. Ditto for transport service providers. The only drawbacks with a carbon tax are that:
a) politicians will decide how the money gets spent, and
b) the complexity of current tax law suggests that the odds that the tax will be applied evenly to all emitters is pretty low, and
c) promises of reductions in income taxes to offset the revenue and economic impact of new tax will not survive the political process of implementing the tax – because of point a)
Kevyn,
the digression was to be expected, moving to what we emit a lot of as GHG emissions, as we determined that the study was bun. Nonetheless,
The question you raise is a good one: we have to drastically reduce emissions, but we can’t govern our way out of a paper bag.
DS
Page five of the “Main Findings” of “Consuming Australia” says:
“Sensible consumption is as important as turning out the lights
Burning fossil fuels for energy accounts for most greenhouse pollution in
Australia. This energy is used mainly in the production and distribution
of goods, with household electricity and personal transport being important
secondary components. The direct use of energy and the goods and
services consumed by an average Australian in one year result in the
generation of about 19 tonnes of greenhouse gas pollution.
The areas where a household has relatively direct control – such as their
own electricity, gas, and transport use – account for less than a third of
total emissions.
In fact, if every Australian household switched to renewable energy and
stopped driving their cars tomorrow, total household emissions would
decline by only about 18%.
The emissions generated from producing the food we eat and the goods
we purchase are together more than four times the emissions from our
own personal use of electricity. This suggests that for households to
make a serious dent in greenhouse emissions, they must go well beyond
merely reducing energy and petrol use.”
Which seems clear enough. Then page 10 says:
Inner cities are consumption hotspots
Urban living patterns offer many opportunities for efficiency and
reduced environmental impacts, compared to more dispersed populations.
For example, access to public transport, as well as shops and
facilities within walking distance, help make inner city dwellers less car
dependant. Further, the prevalence of more compact housing such as
apartments in urban centres could lead to lower per person electricity
and heating costs.
Yet despite the lower environmental impacts associated with less car
use, inner city households outstrip the rest of Australia in every other
category of consumption. Even in the area of housing, the opportunities
for relatively efficient, compact living appear to be overwhelmed by the
energy and water demands of modern urban living, such as air conditioning,
spa baths, down lighting and luxury electronics and appliances,
as well as by a higher proportion of individuals living alone or in small
households.
In each state and territory, the centre of the capital city is the area with
the highest environmental impacts, followed by the inner suburban
areas. Rural and regional areas tend to have noticeably lower levels of
consumption.
These trends in are closely correlated with wealth. Higher incomes in the
inner cities are associated with higher levels of consumption across the
board.”
Which also seems clear enough.
So where did I mis-state the findings of the report and where did Tony?
Tony wrote his op ed in Australia where “Consuming Australia” has been widely discussed and if he
distorted its findings or mis quoted he would soon be taken to task.
“Consuming Australia” is just one of many reports, on many topics, which conclude that no matter what your objectives forced manipululation of urban form is not the way to achieve it. The costs are high and the benefits are best achieved by other more direct means. My professor, the late Aaron Wildavsky, used to call policies such “indirect” policies such as Smart Growth “Feeding the sparrow through the horse”.
You misstated, Owen, that homes on the fringe use less energy. The reason for this is that infill in central cities is occupied by wealthy people, who consume more goods and services due to greater disposable income.
So your bullsh– implication about SFD being wonderful and sustainability is buncome is a bullsh– assertion, based on a false implied premise. And your colleague’s op-ed is rife with similar false premises. “Your” assertions cannot stand the slightest scrutiny.
DS
I should have stated that Owen misstated the findings of the paper.
DS
DAn, if you are going to accuse me of mis-stating the findings of the Consuming Australia study you should first to read more carefully.
You say I wrote: “That homes on the fringe use less energy.”
Here is what I actually wrote:
“The Australian Study “Consuming Australia†found that households living in low density housing on the urban periphery had the lowest carbon footprint while inner city households had the highest footprint.”
Notice the term I used was “households” not “homes”. This is why the Australian study is so useful – it focuses on the consumption of households not the structure which houses the households. You will see that the quoted sections from the report are all about households. Studies which focus on the buildings are totally misleading.
One US study tried to make a similar analysis by simply counting the number of electric appliances within dwellings in downtown and in the suburbs and found suburban houses had more. I was astonished that such a flawed study ever say the light of day.
This is a bad habit of some planners. They similarly focus on the efficiency of the vehicles which provide transport rather than the efficiency provided to the consumer. The difference is immense.
If trains were more efficient than trucks and this was all that mattered then all transport would be by train.
Container ships are definetly more efficient that planes. And yet we airfreight our mussels and strawberries from NZ to the US. Do you have any idea why? Other than that we are obviously stupid and subsidised and subject to some conspiracy by the airlines.
Here is what I actually wrote:
“The Australian Study “Consuming Australia†found that households living in low density housing on the urban periphery had the lowest carbon footprint while inner city households had the highest footprint.â€Â
Please quote and give the page number where the study says this. Thank you in advance.
It is basic knowledge that SFD homes are not as efficient energy-wise as SFA. Utterly basic.
(This is not to say that because of this basic fact, all planners want to ensure people are forced into living in dense housing. There are certain ideologues here who use this puerile logic, please don’t bother commenting with such childish rhetoric. Thank you.)
DS
Dan,
Go to “Consuming Australia – Main Findings” at
http://americandreamcoalition.org/ConsumingAustralia.pdf
Go to page 10 from which I quoted at length above.
My statement is a summary of the page 10 findings (I did not put the statement in quotes) and in particular it summarises the following statements:
“Yet despite the lower environmental impacts associated with less car use, inner city households outstrip the rest of Australia in every othercategory of consumption. Even in the area of housing, the opportunities for relatively efficient, compact living appear to be overwhelmed by the energy and water demands of modern urban living, such as air conditioning, spa baths, down lighting and luxury electronics and appliances,
as well as by a higher proportion of individuals living alone or in small
households.
In each state and territory, the centre of the capital city is the area with the highest environmental impacts, followed by the inner suburban areas. Rural and regional areas tend to have noticeably lower levels of consumption.
These trends in are closely correlated with wealth. Higher incomes in the
inner cities are associated with higher levels of consumption across the
board.â€Â
And of course you may say the report here refers to consumption rather than the carbon footprint but the main finding of the report is that carbon footprint correlates with consumption which naturally correlates strongly with wealth. See pages 4,5, and 6 and for wealth greenhouse gas correlation see the graph on page 8. Al Gore and his lifestyle provide further evidence of this inconvenient correlation.
As I have been a planner since the mid sixties I obviously refute the claim about “all planners”.
Ah. So the report did not find that households living in low density housing on the urban periphery had the lowest carbon footprint while inner city households had the highest footprint.
The report found that the consumption habits of wealthy people in infill areas in center cities overwhelmed any transport or shared wall efficiency gains.
My point was and is that you are mischaracterizing the findings of the report.
Take one capita out of a house in a SFD suburb and its all even again or worse.
DS
Dan, could part of the reason wealthy people in central cities have a larger carbon footprint than most also be that they tend to live far away from work? Yes, many do work in the central city but most jobs are out in the suburbs. That is, if you’re living in Stapleton what are the chances that you take a bus downtown to work versus drive to the DTC or Lone Tree or Interlocken area?
And how does wealth skew the numbers for suburban and exurban areas?
That’s probably a part of it, but the report Owen likes was explicit in the consumption part of the equation, and also explicit (like so many other studies) that VMT is lower in central cities/TOD/denser areas. The literature is clear that SFD uses more energy overall, but when you look at it the way the report did, for a short period of time a SFD can have lower footprint per capita until one or more of the capitas leaves and the empty nesters are heating 1000 m^2 house for two people, then the figures don’t look so good. Anyway,
Kind of an odd reference, but this paper gets at why this consumption bit is so.
DS