260 Megawatts!! Google's power usage at data center.

[Analog]

The company said that its data centers continuously drew almost 260 million watts — about a quarter of the output of a nuclear power plant — to run Google searches, YouTube views, Gmail messaging and display ads on all those services around the world.
Though the electricity figure may seem large, the company asserts that the world is using less energy as a result of the billions of operations carried out in Google data centers. Google says people should consider things like the amount of gasoline saved when someone conducts a Google search rather than, say, driving to the library. “They look big in the small context,” Urs Hoelzle, Google’s senior vice president of technical infrastructure, said in an interview.
Google says that people conduct over a billion searches a day and numerous other downloads and queries, and it calculates that the average energy consumption for a typical user is small, about 180 watt-hours a month, or the equivalent of running a 60-watt light bulb for three hours. The overall electricity figure includes all Google operations worldwide, including the energy required to run its campuses and office parks, he added.



http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/09/t...ctricity-output-of-its-data-centers.html?_r=1

 

[her209]

What happens when they need 1.21 jiggawatts?

 

[GagHalfrunt]

What happens when they need 1.21 jiggawatts?

Then you're gonna see some serious shit.

 

[gevorg]

Google says people should consider things like the amount of gasoline saved when someone conducts a Google search rather than, say, driving to the library.

What a primitive analogy.

 

[KLin]

Then you're gonna see some serious shit.

 

[Texashiker]

A year ago, I heard that every google search uses enough energy to boil a cup of water.

~~ EDIT ~~

An article from 2009 that says 2 google searches has the same carbon footprint as boiling a kettle of water (whatever a "kettle" is).

http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/article5489134.ece

 

[lord_emperor]

A year ago, I heard that every google search uses enough energy to boil a cup of water.

~~ EDIT ~~

An article from 2009 that says 2 google searches has the same carbon footprint as boiling a kettle of water (whatever a "kettle" is).

http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/article5489134.ece

That can't be true, at a billion searches per day google's usage would be 972 gigawatts. Based on napkin math of 1,000,000,000 searches per day each raising the temperature of 250ml water by 80 degrees celsius.

 

[spidey07]

Plural - it's all their data centers combined. And just think about half of that is for cooling/air handling.

 

[Ns1]

seems reasonable, given that google is our new overlord.

 

[BrunoPuntzJones]

Then you're gonna see some serious shit.

bravo

 

[lxskllr]

It sounds like a big number, but a lot gets done with that energy use. I wonder how much electricity everybody(combined) uses to keep beer cold.

 

[Red Squirrel]

That's not too much actually. A single wind turbine (the big industrial ones) produce a bit over 1MW, just to put it into perspective.

 

[mmntech]

Then you're gonna see some serious shit.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I5cYgRnfFDA

The only thing with that kind of power is a bolt of lightning! Great Scott!!

 

[Texashiker]

That can't be true, at a billion searches per day google's usage would be 972 gigawatts. Based on napkin math of 1,000,000,000 searches per day each raising the temperature of 250ml water by 80 degrees celsius.

The article estimates that in 2009, 200 million searches were being done daily.

Wikpedia says google serves 400 million queries per day

 

[Krazy4Real]

Then you're gonna see some serious shit.

lol

 

[KLin]

That's not too much actually. A single wind turbine (the big industrial ones) produce a bit over 1MW, just to put it into perspective.

That really didn't put anything into perspective for me.

 

[lord_emperor]

The article estimates that in 2009, 200 million searches were being done daily.

Wikpedia says google serves 400 million queries per day

"Google says that people conduct over a billion searches a day."

 

[Texashiker]

"Google says

Google is an idea, it can not "say" anything.

 

[Ns1]

Google is an idea, it can not "say" anything.

lol

 

[Rubycon]

It sounds like a big number, but a lot gets done with that energy use. I wonder how much electricity everybody(combined) uses to keep beer cold.

Haha yeah good one!

260MW is chump change compared to how much all the computers folding/crunching out there are using combined. Or bitcoin mining for that matter.

It's funny to think that a large cruise ship could power more than half of Google. :biggrin:

 

[Tsavo]

This needs a Library of Congress reference in order for it to make sense. 260 megawatts is enough energy to run the Library of Congress for seven years.

 

[Matthiasa]

This needs a Library of Congress reference in order for it to make sense. 260 megawatts is enough energy to run the Library of Congress for seven years.

Watts is a unit of power, you want watt hours which is a unit of energy.

 

[Mr. Pedantic]

That's what, 22kJ per search? That is a heck of a lot.

This needs a Library of Congress reference in order for it to make sense. 260 megawatts is enough energy to run the Library of Congress for seven years.

lolfail

 

[Zap]

Is that why there is no power to Southern California and SW Arizona right now? Because Google is sucking it all down?

 

[nageov3t]

all those data centers, and I don't think I've ever seen a job posting for one