The thing about two Google searches using enough energy to boil a cup of tea probably is at least partly due to Google's supposed use of commodity hardware. From what I understand, Google uses a ton of cheap commodity computer hardware for powering their system. Their software is what is key to their whole operation. But, the drawback from using cheap commodity type hardware, especially if it's older hardware, is that it is nowhere near as energy efficient as newer hardware.
Also, Google's index is so huge that is probably takes a large number of hard drives. So figure that one single search likely sends dozens, or many dozens, of hard drives spinning and seeking to find that right data. Add in processors and other components as well as cooling and you have yourself a fairly energy intensive search.
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