Google: Don't drink, send an email instead

Google decided to tell the world how green it is on Thursday when they publicized details regarding their energy usage. Google claims they use less energy per user to power their servers than a light left burning for three hours. 

SAN FRANCISCO, CA (Catholic Online) - Google also claims they are a carbon neutral company, so that people who use Google have zero carbon footprint when they use Google applications. Still, the company uses a considerable amount of electricity, given its tremendous size and popularity. Worldwide, Google data centers use about 260 million watts, or what has been described as about the quarter of the output of an average size nuclear plant. 

Google bases some of its claims on carbon neutrality by what consumption it has replaced. For example, people use Google where before they might have used a car to drive to the library. Or they send email when previously they would have sent a letter. Electronic pages do not consume paper as books do.

Google also claims energy savings on the basis of its green investments. The company claims that by investing in green energy projects, they actually create 1.7 gigawatts of green power. 
Until Thursday, Google's electricity usage data has been a closely held secret. Many speculate it's because disclosing the information may reveal vital clues about how Google runs its operations. 

Google provided additional statistics to illustrate their energy savings.

-Doing 100 searches on Google burns the same amount of electricity as it takes to power a 60 watt bulb for 28 minutes.

- Three days of streaming a YouTube video requires as much energy as manufacturing, packaging, and delivering a DVD. 

- A year of free Gmail email, takes less energy than drinking a bottle of wine, stuffing a message into the bottle and tossing it into the ocean.

Editors note: Google did not detail how they calculated the last statistic. 

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