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Google's Juicy Addiction: Cheap Electric

Posted Feb 18, 08 5:04 PM CST in Technology 

(Newser) – No industrial smokestacks rise from that cute Google logo, but each click of the search button takes an environmental toll, Harper's reports. Google and its competitors are guzzling electricity to power ever-larger server complexes, and a renewable-energy initiative is more about making amends than benevolence. A new taxpayer-subsidized Google center along Oregon’s Columbia River will likely use a Tacoma-sized chunk of power.

Despite creating no more than 200 jobs, Google has lined up local infrastructure, Oregon tax breaks, and federally subsidized ultra-cheap power. And as the tech giants fight for the most computing power, they’re moving abroad and taking advantage of dirtier energy sources. Microsoft, AT&T, and Google all have overseas data centers whose power comes mostly from fossil fuels.

Source Harper's

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This sign welcomes visitors to the main building of the Googleplex (Google's company headquarters) at 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway in Mountain View, California. Recent findings question the amount of resources...   (Wikipedia Commons)
The Google logo is seen on a podium and projected on a screen at Google headquarters in Mountain View, Calif., Monday, Dec. 10, 2007. (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma)   (Associated Press)
This photo rendering released by the FutureGen Alliance shows the proposed $1.8 energy plant project which lawmakers said Tuesday, Jan. 29, 2008, the U.S. Department of Energy will no longer support....   (Associated Press)
Sunflower Electric Cooperative's coal-fired power plant in Holcomb, Kan. churns out electricity in this Feb. 2, 2007 file photo. Though it avoids the polluting image held by previous industries, Google...   (Associated Press)
Steam rises from cooling towers at the coal-fired Pawnee Power Plant near Bush, Colo. in this Jan. 29, 2007 file photo. (AP Photo/Ed Andrieski, File)   (Associated Press)
Eric Schmidt, chairman and CEO of US Internet search engine Google, gives a press conference June 19, 2007 in Paris. Though it avoids the polluting image held by previous industries, Google and other...   (Getty Images)
A Google employee rides a bicycle by a sign at the company's headquarters October 18, 2007 in Mountain View, California.(Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)   (Getty Images)
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Google • Microsoft • electricity • AT&T • nuclear power • renewable energy • fossil fuel • computer servers • environmental impact • data centers • industrial pollution


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