How Much Electricity Does Google Use?

If you're like me, Google is usually your first stop when looking for information. Google also manages my email, calendars, contacts, and RSS feeds. Keeping these services running requires a lot of computing power and electricity usage. When thinking about how many server farms, data centers, routers, switches, cooling systems, etc... are required to keep all of this running, it becomes apparent that this is very energy intensive.

No one knows for sure just how much electricity Google uses to run its operations, but people speculate nonetheless. I found a blog post that tried to quantify just how much electricity Google consumes and how much CO₂ this translates to. From the blog post, it looks like Google receives its electricity from nuclear and hydro plants, but still consumes more than most countries!

Interesting read. Check out the post here for more info.

Look at these maps!

Chapter 7 of "Hot Politics" mentions "The National Assessment of Climate Change Impacts", a document published then suppressed in 2000, presumably for fear of reactions to its warnings. The portion of this document that I found most striking, and most direct to address lingering questions I have had of the predicted effects of climate change, is linked to the title of this post.

My first job out of undergrad consisted almost exclusively of using finite element analysis to model how heat, current, and stress work their way through simple shapes, and what the effects might be, given the material properties. Day in and day out I was building models and running simulations, then trying to figure out if what they told me was anywhere near the truth. Sometimes the excitement of having a model run successfully made it very hard to admit that the results were unlikely.

So when I consider what complexity might be involved in modeling the climate of the earth and predicting to any certainty its future, I am overwhelmed with questions. This document gives a mechanical engineer, and I assume a lot of other laymen, a fighting chance at understanding the scientists' predictions.

We are given an example of a simple model. It includes: ice, water, clouds, and land; evaporation, runoff, heat exchanges, and of course, solar insolation. I wonder what the boundary conditions are, what the predictive equations are, how many versions of the eventual plots were produced and how the "true" ones were selected.

Regardless of which of the models presented actually come to fruition, several possible effects make my skin crawl. We have all seen the predictions that average temperatures will rise somewhere between 1 and 6 degrees F in the next 100 years. The peaks and valleys of that average are my current preoccupation. One map shows the July heat index for most of the U.S. increasing by more than 25 degrees F. Remember that mostly 100 degree summer in 2006? But then there is the matter of summer soil moisture, which considers Austin may become a veritable swamp. It looks like a lot of the quantities and types of trees will change, mostly increasing, but Florida will lose those beautiful pine forests, and the Rocky Mountains will sacrifice its glorious Alpine meadows.

Texas to Blame for High US CO2 Emissions? Not So Fast

This AP article blasts Texas as a hopelessly unenvironmental state whose "everything's bigger" mentality has led it to being the state with staggeringly more CO2 emissions than the rest of the US. It goes on to point out that if TX were a country (as I believe some believe it is...), it would rank 7th in the world in CO2 emissions! It does go on to point out that Texas's CO2 emissions are so high because of the state's sheer size, population, and industrial density, but my interpretation is that the article clearly intends to paint TX as a complacent entity that should learn a lesson or two from the emissions reduction initiatives in Cal. or NY.

Well, we already acknowledged that Texas's size may be a good reason for its emissions, so maybe there is a better way to compare states - how about carbon intensity! Carbon intensity is defined by the EIA as the ratio of CO2 emissions to gross domestic product and by the IPCC as the ratio of CO2 emissions to primary fuel use. One could argue that absolute emissions are all that matters, but carbon intensity is probably a better way to make basic emissions comparisons. I mean seriously, can we really compare Delaware to TX when it comes to total emissions? We're talking apples and oranges here.

So where does Texas stack up? Using the most recent 2004 data (I guess it takes a while to inventory a country's emissions), in emissions per primary fuel use, TX is #27. Per GDP? #16. So not great, but certainly not the worst of the bunch by these metrics. In case you're curious, top 3 in both measures are Wyoming, West Virginia, and North Dakota.

So my point is, cherry picking statistics to frame an article is certainly not uncommon, and we need to be aware that this practice helps shape more than just energy related policy and public opinion (seen any US article on China's energy use lately?). As the state with the 3rd highest GDP and highest fuel use, TX can certainly learn from other economically similar states like CA and NY, but care should be taken and all facts researched before we start labeling any US emissions scapegoat.