Google’s Net Zero Plans Are Going Up In Smoke

For years, the search giant has touted its alt-energy deals and net zero plans. But these four charts show that Google’s electricity use, CO2 emissions, and carbon intensity, are soaring.

JUL 07, 2024

And the numbers don’t lie. As seen in the chart below, since 2017, CO2 emissions at Google have jumped four-fold to a company record of 14.3 million tons in 2023...

Why does this matter? There are many reasons. First among them: Google has been among the most aggressive promoters of the notion that it was a different kind of company, a “clean” industry from Silicon Valley that wouldn’t pollute like old industrial companies such as U.S. Steel or ExxonMobil. But the latest numbers show that Google is, at root, an industrial company that relies on massive digital foundries — that’s a better description than the anodyne “data centers” — that use staggering quantities of juice. Further, the company’s electricity needs could never be supplied by wind and solar alone. Or to put it bluntly, Google’s claims about decoupling itself from the realities of the physical world and the vagaries of electric grids were little more than corporate greenwashing...


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