Change Google's Background Color To Save Energy?

i_like_spam writes "Recent commentary at Nature Climate Change describes an on-going debate about the energy savings associated with the background colors used by high-traffic websites such as Google and the NYTimes. A back of the envelope calculation has suggested energy savings of 750 Megawatt hours per year if Google switched their background from white to black. In response, a new version of Google called Blackle was created. However, other calculations by the Wall Street Journal suggest minimal energy savings."

Oh, the irony....

[mark-t (151149)]

A site that criticizes google for having a light background itself uses a light background.

Re:Oh, the irony....

[KiloByte (825081)]

Yeah, but only one of these schemes is The Right One.

And judging from your heretical approach to this matter, I guess you may even use Emacs. Eew.

Re:Oh, the irony....

[nicolastheadept (930317)]

Yeah you're right, light grey on dark grey is good too: http://support.steampowered.com/ [steampowered.com] is a good example

Re:WHY IT GOTTA BE BLACK!??!!

[hwojtek (244736)]

I belive black would turn down the power usage on a CRT, but LCD running white (no voltage applied to the cells, so no dimming) uses less energy... Or am I wrong?

double entendre

[User 956 (568564)]

A back of the envelope calculation has suggested energy savings of 750 Megawatt hours per year if Google switched their background from white to black. In response, a new version of Google called Blackle was created.

Once Google has gone Black, they'll never go back. That's what I hear, anyway.

Re:double entendre

[yoyhed (651244)]

Can't we go to the middle ground and let Google go Asian?

Of course, I wouldn't know how to implement that

Umm... "body bgcolor=#FFFF00" ?

Only applicable for CRTs

[advocate_one (662832)]

TFT backlights are still on even if entire page is white text on black... they only go off when energy savings kick in and turn the display off.

Re:Only applicable for CRTs

[Detritus (11846)]

Thread makers are a dyeing breed.

Slashdotters, take notice

[archeopterix (594938)]

PLEASE USE BOLD AND UPPERCASE IN YOUR COMMENTS. A +5 COMMENT IN BOLD AND UPPERCASE SAVES 5 DONKEY-FORTHNIGHTS OF THE ENERGY

Re:Slashdotters, take notice

[by Anonymous Coward]

Anything with the word "Donkey-fortnight" gets past the lameness filter

This is pretty much nonsense

[grahamtriggs (572707)]

The vast majority of people run LCD monitors these days. For the most part they run with a backlight of constant brightness - so there is no energy saving with a black screen.

Only if the LCD detects a dark screen, and adaptively lowers the backlight, will there be any energy saving.

Re:This is pretty much nonsense

[1u3hr (530656)]

The vast majority of people run LCD monitors these days.

No they don't. The majority of monitors sold surely, but monitors last for many years. Mine is over 10 years old, and has survived three or four PCs. There are a lot of old systems and even older monitors in use.

Re:This is pretty much nonsense

[phoenix321 (734987)]

If you compare the energy consumption of CRTs and LCDs in everyday use, you'll find astounding results. Or perhaps not so astounding, as the CRT is sucking 150W or more, while your LCD consumes less than 40W - or 60W if you've got a larger screen.

Now you know why many companies are throwing out / have thrown out long ago their CRTs and why it's dumb to pick them up for even less than 10 dollars: larger CRTs may be cheap to buy, but they eat into your wallet through 2-3 years. For fellow geeks who use their computer for 10 hours a day, that's some serious cash burned per year. And baby seals and pet whales killed, of course.

Most decent notebooks use 40W-60W total when under load, while older desktops routinely have PSUs that eat 30W in the *off*-state (computer powered down, but cable plugged in). A wattmeter ($15) and a calculator ($5) can do so much more for your wallet (and those pooooooooor baby seals) than switching to CF lamps and changing the background of that damn CRT to black.

Common energy hogs in the average home (in case you haven't taken care of some of these already)

- the fridge. There are models that use 140kwh per year available, yours probably uses 300 or more
- the freezer. same here, but when upgrading, consider a top-opening freezer. As cold air stays down, it's much more energy conserving than front-opening models
- lighting: use CFLs wherever convenient and LED replacements where there's not enough room for CFLs or switching cycles are important

But those are costing money. Here are some savings for free:
- the VCR, radio or TV: some waste 15-20W or more for doing nothing than blinking 12:00 - get a e-meter and a power strip with a simple on/off switch.
- washer and dryer: these appliances sometimes waste 20W or more when just being plugged in. Mine does and it's not a cheap one, either. That's right, 20W energy drain for nothing, no clock, no blinkenlights, nothing, just the plug in the socket. E-meter and then pull the plug when not using them, problem solved.
- the desktop PC. As mentioned above, most PSUs use 35W for nothing when the computer is supposedly in the off-state. The same for some peripherals, although they use 5-10W at most. Switchable power strip takes care of that - and have all peripherals plugged together so one switch really turns them all off: powered USB-hub, printer, scanner, speaker, screen and everyting else.

Total cost: 3 switchable power strips for $3 each and an e-meter ($15). Savings in the first year almost $100 or more, convenience and standard of living lost: zero.

Are we sure this helps?

[ddt (14627)]

Most computers these days use LCD screens, and most LCD's use flourescent tubes as a backlight, which is what creates whiteness. If you put your ear really close to your screen, it's also what creates a faint hum. Those tubes draw most of the power on a display, and they don't turn off just because the screen goes black.

I don't think changing the colour to white changes the power draw significantly. It just means more of the flourescent tube light is passing through the screen.

Not true at all

[moosesocks (264553)]

All LCD screens get their light from a single backlight. When the display is on, the backlight is on. Always.

The LCD crystals in the screen act as tiny shutters, and can open or close to allow that light through, or keep it out. Although these shutters take a small amount of energy to open and close, it's insignificant compared to the amount of energy it takes to power the backlight.

A commenter in this thread [blogspot.com] commented that an Apple 17" display attached to a lab supply is measured as drawing 0.6W less when displaying a white screen than when displaying a black one.

CRT screens probably do draw less power when displaying a black screen, but on the whole they still draw considerably more power than an LCD under any circumstance. On the same note, CRT users may find that the white-on-black scheme is easier on their eyes -- I still have a CRT in my cube at work, and setting my editor to the white-on-black scheme is definitely more legible and less stressful on my eyes. (I still find it more legible on LCDs, although eye strain isn't an issue at all)

I don't get it... CowboyNeal should know better than this. Is he intentionally seeding flamebait?

How the hell would this work?

[Sycraft-fu (314770)]

It's not like it takes any less power to transfer the bits or anything like that, so they must be talking displays. Ok, fine, maybe (and I do emphasize maybe) this would work if we were all on CRTs but we aren't. LCDs are dominant these days. Well, their backlights are always on. They work by blocking light, not by emitting it. So their power consumption is constant, regardless of what the panel is doing.

To me this jsut sounds like more BS "Get more from less!" crap from people who probably aren't willing to make the simple changes that will actually, really make a difference.

Look, if you want to use less energy have your computer turn off monitor, disks, and suspend sooner, replace incandescent bulbs with CFLs (there are good full spectrum ones out there that give nice light), get a programmable thermostat and add some weatherstripping around doors and windows. It's simple, cheap and will do way more than crap like this.

Bring back the BLINK tag...

[Octopus (19153)]

It will provide at least 50% in power savings.

Then again, that extra money might get taken up in seizure meds.

Save energy by switching off your monitor

[rossdee (243626)]

and don't use a fancy scrensaver, just a blank screen.

Feel the

[jsse (254124)]

POWER saving of the darkside...

Skywalker: pardon?!

Re:Feel the

[RuBLed (995686)]

ha! so that's why the dark jedi's lightsabers last longer.. they go in power saving mode when idle...

Re:No savings on LCD:s

[TheThiefMaster (992038)]

In fact don't TFTs use marginally more energy to display black?

Depends on the kind

[Sycraft-fu (314770)]

TN+Film ones, by far the most common, do. They have to be energised to go black, their no power state is open which is why the pixels fail to white. VA (P-MVA, S-PVA and so on) and IPS (S-IPS and such) don't because their no power state is black and have to be energised to open and thus fail to black.

Regardless the energy used on the panels isn't much in comparison to the backlight. That's why companies toy with reflective displays (like the old Game Boy Advances). It does really well for battery life when there's not a backlight. That's what sucks the energy.

Re:Black background?

[Asmodai (13932)]

From what I remember reading in some research is that a light grey text on a black background actually produces one of the best readable displays for your eyes.

Anyway, interesting read: http://www.writer2001.com/colwebcontrast.htm [writer2001.com]

It's all about priorities

[ben there... (946946)]

Somehow I suspect 116,144.654 is a bit overblown, and the About section amused me because obviously setting Blackle to your homepage only saves energy if you have Google for your homepage in the first place.

Yeah, but setting blackle.com as your homepage earns blackle.com a whole lot of money from Google Custom Search.

How can you help?

We encourage you to set Blackle as your home page. This way every time you load your Internet browser you will save a little bit of energy. Remember every bit counts! You will also be reminded about the need to save energy each time you see the Blackle page load.

Help us spread the word about Blackle by telling your friends and family to set it as their home page. If you have a blog then give us a mention. Or put the following text in your email signature: "Blackle.com - Saving energy one search at a time".

Think about how much energy we would have saved if we all didn't read this spamvertising.

Re:silly

[deragon (112986)]

Sorry to correct you, but the temperature of the room will practically not change, unless the LCD faces a window.

If the LCD background is white, the light will eventually hit an object of your office and most of it will be absorbed. By absorbed, we mean converted to heat. The remaining light will be reflected to another object that will absorb again. And this continues until there is no more light.

Only light escaping your office through a window will prevent increase. Granted, because of reflection, there will be more light of the LCD that will eventually hit a window when using a white background than a black one, but for practical purposes, the quantity of energy lost will be very, very small. As a percentage of total energy lost to heat, the difference between using a white background versus a black background will be minuscule.

As a rule, no energy is created nor lost. And most forms of energy degrade as heat.