Save energy using "Blackle" instead of "Google" ?

[Beaverhausen]

Anyone else get this email?

For those worried with energy consumption and all its downsides ... When
your screen is white, being it an empty word page, or the Google page,
your computer consumes 74 watts, and when its black it consumes only 59
watts. Mark Ontkush wrote an article about the energy saving that would
be achieved if Google had a black screen, taking in account the huge
number of page views, according to his calculations, 750 mega watts/hour
per year would be saved.

In a response to this article Google created a black version of its
search engine, called Blackle, with the exact same functions as the
white version, but with a lower energy consumption, check it out.

http://www.blackle.com

[chaska]

1. Great! Thanks, Beav. Always looking for these kinds of ideas (bookmarked). Here's what I do....

If I spend a lot of time per page, like when I'm reading an article, I size my screen to the smallest size that will accomodate the article (no ads. YES!). And I use a predominently black desktop background (whatever you call that).

[jberryhill]

2. Two things

Google did not create that page. The domain name is registered to an individual.

And, more importantly, the LC layer of an LCD screen merely modulates a fluorescent backlight which is always on, whether you are looking at black, white, or whatever.

[chaska]

3. crap. so blackle is no good?

...likewise what I'm doing?

[skids]

10. Light on dark is good if you own a CRT or plasma display...

...for LCD the savings is next to nothing.

Light on dark themes is something that I wish more websites would offer, mind you, but not because of energy use, mainly because that is what I'm used to from being an early computer user. I find white screens glaring and hard to read, but unfortunately most websites have their text colors picked out for a light background and won't work well with simple hacks -- all the text colors need to be changed and even then there's a lot of images making up the widgets.

[jberryhill]

13. I agree

I make things Green on black whenever I can for aesthetic and historical reasons.

However, if one has a CRT, the best thing one can do to save energy is get an LCD screen.

[skids]

15. Well, depends...

You kinda have to do the math of the useful life of the crt/carbon footprint of thr crt use and carbon footprint of that much life out of an LCD.

But yeah, if and when you upgrade, LCD is the way to go, or oleds might be better or not if and when they hit the fabs.

[jberryhill]

12. Blackle may be worse than no good....

Since the guy obviously created it and spamvertised it for a reason.

Search query data is economically valuable for a number of things.

[OKIsItJustMe]

5. Actually

If I recall correctly, a single pixel of an LCD display requires more power to be black than white. (Of course, if the whole screen is black, because it's "sleeping," that means the fluorescent backlight is off.)

Of note, Apple's latest 15" MacBook Pro uses LED backlighting.
http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2007/06/05mbp.html

[jberryhill]

14. It depends on the type of screen

The argument here, though, is like telling people to watch dark scenes in movies so that the projector bulb doesn't use as much energy.

The fact is that the projector bulb, like the backlight of an LCD is always on.

LCD display cells consume power when they *change* from one color to another. They are capacitive cells filled with a cholesteric fluid in which an applied electric field changes their direction of optical polarization.

In English, that means that an LCD cell that isn't doing anything is just holding a fixed charge of electricity. To make the cell do something else, you have to change the charge on the cell. It is the *changing* part that consumes power.

[Speck Tater]

4. Does a Darkened Google Really Save Electricity? (article)

http://blogs.wsj.com/numbersguy/does-a-darkened-google-really-save-electricity-104/

---quote---

On LCD displays, color may confer no benefit at all. In response to my inquiry, Steve Ryan, program manager for Energy Star’s power-management program, asked consulting firm Cadmus Group to run a quick test by loading Blackle, Google and the Web site of the New York Times (which is, like Google, mostly white on-screen) on two monitors — one CRT, one LCD — and connecting a power meter to both. “We found that the color on screen mattered very little to the energy color consumption of the LCD monitor,” said David Korn, principal at Cadmus, which specializes in energy and environment, and does work for the government. The changes were so slight as to be within the margin of error for the power meter. Tweaking brightness and contrast and settings had a bigger effect. The bulkier CRT screen did see savings with Blackle of between 5% and 20%. Mr. Korn emphasized that this was a quick test, not a rigorous study.

---end quote---

[Warpy]

6. Nice idea. Now if only Firefox and other browsers would come out

with white on black browsers, we'd really have something.

I wonder if the power savings are calculated only for CRTs or if they are averaged to reflect LCD power usage, too.

I couldn't wait until I caught an auction right and was able to switch to LCD screens. Bye bye headaches!

[IDemo]

8. Here's a start, there are other black/dark themes

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/4908

[Warpy]

9. I know, I've thought about that.

I just think most of the skins are butt ugly.

That's just me, of course. Beauty is always in the eye of the beholder.

[NV Whino]

7. Gack!

It's extremely difficult to read the searches. I'm sticking to white.

[matt819]

11. Not created by Google

Not sure whether or not it matters, but this site is registered to someone in Australia as of Jan 07.