What's the Energy Consumption of a Google Search?

Simon Fodden, in his Slaw post, The Cost of Free Google Searches, has the answer along with some very interesting details about Google's efforts to keep energy costs down for the Company's million or so servers. He writes

"[T]hese are not just off-the-shelf servers such as you might find down the hall in the hot IT room: Google rolls its own, and has done pretty much from the start. ... Google servers run with efficient wiring on 12 volts throughout; and they’re supplied with backup power not via the usual centralized and wasteful “uninterruptible power supplies” but through individual batteries within each server.

BTW, did you know that Google servers are housed in standard shipping containers, 1160 servers per shipping container, and that the shipping containers are stored in hangers? See Fodden's post for more. [JH]