Black: The New Green

For those of you who spend most of the day in front of a computer and can’t live without the search engine Google, I have news: there’s a more energy-efficient way to get queries delivered to you! It’s called Blackle (www.Blackle.com), and it’s the black-screen version of Google, powered by Google Custom Search. 

Blackle is designed to save more electricity in its delivery of information onto your computer screen by using less wattage to illuminate the screen, versus Google’s vacant, white screen.

Blackle was born after a blogger Mark Ontkush at ecoIron suggested that because of Google’s immense popularity, it could save 750 megawatt-hours-per-year if the search engine switched to a black display.

If you’re wondering what that means, one megawatt-hour is the same as turning on 10,000 light bulbs (100 watt bulbs) for an hour. In other words: a lot of excessive energy use!

Ontkush explained that an all-white Web page requires about 74 watts of electricity to display, while a black screen only needs 59 watts. When you consider that Google gets an estimated 200 million queries each day, the savings are significant. However, Blackle critics have pointed out that the search engine is more beneficial to users of older CRT monitors than to those using newer LCD displays.

Either way, Blackle boasts about 1.5 million watt-hours saved since 2007.  And, I have to add that after a few hours on the computer, I find it much easier on the eyes than gleaming white Google. Score. 


While I’m on the topic, here are some more power-saving suggestions for your computer:

•  Check out the energy settings on your computer, and set it to go into “power save mode” after just a few minutes idle.         
• Take the extra few minutes to shut down your computer at the end of the day.
• Upgrade your screen to an LCD monitor. LCDs are estimated have about one-third of the energy requirement of their CRT predecessors.
• Unplug everything when you’ll be gone for several days.