Google Launches Instant To Combat Charge Of Being Anti Green

The whisper campagn against Google's green credentials started a few years ago when a researcher doing his thesis stumbled on the idea of trying to figure out how much carbon is used in a Google search.

The Times of London and many other journals picked up the story and it went "viral" round the web last year. So there were some great headlines such as this one:

"Physicist Alex Wissner-Gross says that performing two Google searches uses up as much energy as boiling the kettle for a cup of tea"

However the Times was forced to post a correction on the exact nature of this story.

However ever since I read the story - it has fascinated me as to perhaps asking this fundamental question.

Is the use of the web actually good for the planet?

So with today's launch of Google Instant - perhaps we now know that Google wants to provide more information faster and its really quite impressive. We now get our crap results and junk faster.

Too bad the crap is still crap.

If only they would do something about the quality... then it would be a much more interesting debate.

Cheers