A great debate has been raging over whether the Internet uses massive amounts of energy, or instead saves energy because it delivers energy savings in many ways. Google has just weighed into the debate again, saying that not just the Internet, but IT in general, helps reduce overall energy use. On its blog, it has some amusing comparisons between Google searching and other activities, like reading a newspaper or drinking orange juice.

Urs Hölzle, Google Senior Vice President, Operations, writes on the Official Google Blog that although ICT (Information and communications technology) emissions are growing, ICT use actually reduces overal energy consumption.

Before he gets to that point, though, he does some interesting number-crunching, comparing the energy used by common activities to the energy used in Google searches. He says, for example, that a single newspaper emits the same amount of energy as doing 850 Google searches. Here's the information, taken straight from the Google blog:

Activity	Google Searches
CO2 emissions of an average daily newspaper (PDF) (100% recycled paper)	850
A glass of orange juice	1,050
One load of dishes in an EnergyStar dishwasher (PDF)	5,100
A five mile trip in the average U.S. automobile	10,000
A cheeseburger	15,000
Electricity consumed by the average U.S. household in one month	3,100,000

Hölzle goes on to say that overall, ICT emissions pay for themselves --- in other words, they're carbon neutral. Here's his reasoning:

Although the amount of energy used to power ICT is growing, it's important to measure all of the ways information technology helps us save energy too. A study by The Climate Group, in fact, shows that ICT emissions pay for themselves (PDF) (and then some) by enabling significant reductions in emissions by other sectors of the economy. After all, it's much more efficient to move electrons than to move atoms. "Virtual" tools like email, video-conferencing, and search engines replace more carbon-intensive activities like snail mail, business travel, and driving.

I think he's right. And what he says holds even more true in enterprises. ICT in business is more than just carbon neutral --- it's a carbon saver. And Green IT is at the core of it.