We are all familiar with Blackle, the site that duplicates Google but with a black screen that purports to be environmentally beneficial because it takes energy to light up a pixel.
My engineering grad student cousin did the math and came up with an interesting result:
- Assuming the electricity came from burning coal (the worst way possible!):
- Approximately 8 tonnes of CO2 / kW-year is released from generation of the electricity
- Blackle has saved 91 grams of greenhouse gas emissions.
Yet
- “CDM Gold Standard” carbon offsets cost approximately $34 / tonne
- Using the $500 spent on hosting, 14.7 tonnes of CO2 could have been offset/removed.