Sounds like they are going for even 'greener' servers. Difficult to predict the future but I wonder: if application platforms like AppEngine will get much more popular, then we will see the positive environmental impact of shared resources. AppEngine rather quickly "unloads" applications that have not received HTTP requests for a few tens of seconds and this has to have a positive effect environmentally. (I know, because I have been trying to beat-down loading request startup times.)

There are lots of applications that are valuable but have sporadic usage patterns and supporting a great many of these efficiently is a good thing.