I think it is hard to believe if Google says, in time, that your personal computer which initiated a search on Google at one of its data centers, consumes more energy than the data center's computing to provide you with answers. But that seem to be the case as Google engineers have worked hard to keep the these data centers energy efficient.Day to day I myself have access to two to three data centers and time to time I visit them. They (the one's I know) are build with energy efficiency thrown very very far away. Trying to keep the centers at 70 degree Fahrenheit is not easy task. Massive cooling towers, then again massive fans to distribute cool air within / to the systems and to extract the warm air from those systems.
The mission critical systems have their own air conditioners within the computer rack. So when I see one of these data centers, energy efficiency is not something that comes to your mind. (Only thing I think about is to get out of there to avoid noice pollution.
But all that were seen in a different perspective once I read the article pointed out by the Google blog. (The link to the article is below).
So I for one learned a lot from this new site and over the time I hope to bring some of these techniques to our data centers if not all. Also remember that Google Solar, and other work targeting making this world a better place, like Project 10.
But you do not have to sit back and say, of I don't have a data center so there is nothing for me to do! Here is one little part from the Google efficient data center site;
"Up to a third of the total energy consumed by a typical server is wasted before reaching the computing components. The majority of these losses occur when converting electricity from one kind to another. The power supply, which converts the AC voltage coming from a standard outlet to a set of low DC voltages, is where most of the energy is lost. A second major source of wasted energy is in voltage regulator circuitry. This circuitry sits on the computer's motherboard and further converts the power supply's output voltages to the voltages required by the microchips. Both sources have traditionally been designed with low efficiency standards to save a few dollars on initial cost. However, this inefficiency causes the owner to spend many more dollars on electricity usage down the road. (So if you're about to buy a new server or computer, buy an efficient one!)"
Official Google Blog: Saving electricity one data center at a time
Google's Commitment to Sustainable Computing
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