There was a recent blog post on NYTimes.com highlighting how downloading music emits less CO2 than buying CDs.
http://greeninc.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/08/17/the-carbon-case-for-downloading-music/
Who would have thought making a plastic disc, packing it in plastic, and shipping via air freight and truck would emit CO2? While most people did know that everything involved in getting a CD to a consumer emits CO2, one important thing to note from this article that people often overlook is that Internet usage does emit CO2 because the computers required to host and transmit the data still consume energy.
Large companies like Amazon, Apple, and non-music related services like Google and Microsoft are comparatively energy efficient. Data centers consume mass amounts of energy because there are literally thousands of computers tightly packed into buildings. It’s in the best interest of these companies to save energy, not just to be green, but to save money. Over the life of a server, its energy use can cost more than the hardware itself. When computers run, they emit heat, which is wasted power. That heat also needs to be removed, typically by air conditioning, which also consumes more energy.
Of the major Internet companies, Google has stepped up and made its energy savings methods public. Hopefully other data centers can follow suit and implement some of the measures to reduce energy consumption.
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