Google Estimated to Have 900,000 Servers
There is a new server count estimate that puts the number of Google's servers not to far under 1 million.
Based on the estimated electricity use of Google's data centers published by Jon Koomey, Data Center Knowledge believes that Google currently runs about 900,000 servers to power its empire.
Google representatives apparently told Koomey, who publishes an influential annual data center power consumption report for the New York Times, that Google's data centers consumed less than 1 percent of the world's combined data center electricity consumption of about 198.8 billion kWh in 2010. Google's computers could be using somewhere in the neighborhood of 220 MW, which would point about 900,000 servers, Koomey believes. The researcher also noted that Google provisions about 50 MW of available power for its largest data centers, which could indicate that Google is preparing for significant expansion in the future.
“Google’s data center electricity use is about 0.01% of total worldwide electricity use and less than 1% of global data center electricity use in 2010,” Koomey writes in his report. “This result is in part a function of the higher infrastructure efficiency of Google’s facilities compared to in-house data centers, which is consistent with efficiencies of other cloud computing installations, but it also reflects lower electricity use per server for Google’s highly optimized servers.”
Koomey noted that Google's data centers account for about 0.01 percent of total worldwide electricity use.

Anyways.I would hate to pay the power bill there.
power is i blieve on average 11 cents a kwatt.
so what is (((11x220x1000)/100)x24)x365
its 211,992,000$
Yeah, that giant fusion reaction burning ball gives us 100% free and clean energy. You pay a lot upfront for the infrastructure, but in the very near future you recoup those costs.
And for some reason, I doubt mining coal, paying workers and running plants somehow is more cost effective. Maybe short term, but definitely not long term.
P.s. I live in Vegas. We have like what, 330 days out of the year of pure sunshine. Load up Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, parts of California, Texas and etc....and well....you could seriously just have grids of panels that could power the whole country.
Believe it or not, I'm really not a hippie - I just think it's crazy we haven't immediately jumped on the Suns energy by now. From a business prospective, it looks very promising and lucrative.
Then there are the inefficiencies of solar only capturing a small amount of light and converting that into electricity. The electricity cant just be piped from the sunny places either as there are inefficiencies in that. Not to mention how unreliable the power source can be(while coal can be controlled).
Not to mention the chemicals that need to be disposed of after a panel has been fully used.
There could be many problems with solar that would make it a bad energy source. Much like many renewable energy sources, it's unreliable.
It would be extremely inefficient to rely only on solar power since it is very expensive and require a lot of maintenance. Additionally, each solar panel cost around 1.5$ / per watt which is extremely expensive compared to nuclear or coal power which cost only around 0.7 CENTS / Watt.
If the United states were to change to solar power completely, it would cost roughly 180 TRILLION Dollars to build the plant which is very unreasonable considering nuclear power is cheaper, more reliable, and way more effiecient.
Here are the calcuation that I made to estimate the cost: The united state uses roughly 120 million kilowatts / hour and each solar panel cost 1.5$/ watt. (120000000000000 watts x 1.5 = 180000000000000 Dollars)
but we all know GOOGLE doesnt pay that... they recieve massive incentives in every city/town the go to...
Yeah, I want to cover the desert's on planet Earth with solar panels, instead of mining and burning coal that deteriorates our O-zone.
How the fuck is that uneducated? When I live in a state with over 300 sunny days per year, it sounds pretty logical (They actually do have a large panel farm a little off into the desert outside of Vegas).
Oh, and dip shit, you wouldn't be destroying the environment - should I take a picture of what the desert looks like outside my house? There's NOTHING but dirt and small, dried up dead brush.
http://dvice.com/assets_c/2010/12/Copper-Mountain-Solar-Facility-opens-thumb-550xauto-53025.jpg
That's what they look like outside Vegas. Looks like some major environment destruction to me....lol.
It's expensive because people who lobby for the oil and gas companies make DAMN sure it remains that way.
If the whole country (and world) got into solar and started pushing development, it would drive down costs dramatically.
It's the same reason logic as how LCD monitors used to cost HUNDREDS more than their CRT counterparts. They also used to look worse image quality wise. Now they're cheap as dirt and can match quality, while taking up much less space and consuming less energy.
If we never pushed LCD monitors, then of course we'd still be at a point where they'd still be expensive - instead we pushed for development and mass production, and look - they're pretty cheap now. I also don't see ANYONE buying CRT; Even the people obsessed about image quality buy LCD now.
Winning.
The author is trying to save energy by cutting the number of uses of the letter 'o' - if everyone does his or her part, it all adds up to pretty serious savings. 'Too' - the word is 'too'.