Google Earthkiller Story Made Up!

So says the very source of the story, according to TechNewsWorld. Ever since the Sunday Times of London reported that Harvard physicist Alex Wissner-Gross had determined that Google's operations produced shocking amounts of greenhouse gas, the unhappy egghead has been inundated with media calls asking him to elaborate. Specifically, they asked: Is it true that two Google searches produce 7 grams of carbon dioxide, equal to that produced to brew a cup of tea? And time and again, he's had to repeat: I said no such thing.

In fact, Wissner-Gross claims that he never even mentioned Google in his study of the computer industry's contribution to global warming. Here's TechNewsWorld's account: "'For some reason, in their story on the study, the Times had an ax to grind with Google,' Wissner-Gross told TechNewsWorld. 'Our work has nothing to do with Google. Our focus was exclusively on the Web overall.' "

So, how did the Sunday Times come up with this bizarre tea analogy? TechNewsWorld interviewed Roger Kay, a specialist in the environmental impact of information technology. As best he can figure, Kay says, the paper took a rough estimate of the kind of electricity required to power Google's data centers, assumed it used coal as power (since it's the cheapest source), and then divided by the number of searches. Stitch that onto a couple of general remarks Wissner-Gross made about the overall environmental cost of the Web, et voilà. "It's just modeling, a modeling exercise that may not necessarily be a reflection of reality," Kay said.

This wouldn't be the first time the British press has been fast and loose with the facts, nor will it be the last. But it stuck in the craw of Google officials, who pride themselves on their environmental consciousness and told TechWorldNews that Sergey Brin and Larry Page personally told the company's PR men to refute this story. "This comes from the top," Google spokesman Jamie Yood told TechNewsWorld.

TechCrunch's Jason Kincaid reports that Wissner-Gross has demanded a correction from the Sunday Times and that the editors have promised to fix the, shall we say, misimpression, by at least the next Sunday edition.