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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."
A site that criticizes google for having a light background itself uses a light background.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
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.
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
PLEASE USE BOLD AND UPPERCASE IN YOUR COMMENTS. A +5 COMMENT IN BOLD AND UPPERCASE SAVES 5 DONKEY-FORTHNIGHTS OF THE ENERGY
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 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?
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
It will provide at least 50% in power savings.
Then again, that extra money might get taken up in seizure meds.
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
Jeroen Ruigrok/Asmodai
Yeah, but setting blackle.com as your homepage earns blackle.com a whole lot of money from Google Custom Search.
Think about how much energy we would have saved if we all didn't read this spamvertising.
POWER saving of the darkside...
Skywalker: pardon?!
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.
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.
Remember the year 2000? They promised us flying cars. They delivered the PT Cruiser...
Thread makers are a dyeing breed.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
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?
Wojtek
Exactly what I was thinking! (The way LCD's produce black is to energize all the pixels that need to be black, "illuminating" them, which makes them opaque, and "get in the way" of the backlight, which is always on.) So, this would effectively *increase* the power consumption of LCD monitors, which are more prevalent everyday, and probably the majority of monitor sales these days.
I have a power meter attached to my computer/screen combo. When I visit blackle in full-screen mode, it uses ~.5 watts less electricity than Google, and my screen consumes about 20W total.
Who needs Blackle when there's userContent.css? Google's been white-on-black on my machines for years. Same with /. It's just easier on the eyes.
.t { .p, a { .w, a.w:link, q:visited, q.link, q:active, .q {g );
@-moz-document url-prefix(http://google.com), url-prefix(http://www.google.com) {
body,
background: black !important;
}
body {
color: white !important;
}
body, td, div,
font-family: fixed-width !important;
}
a:link,
color: #3366cc !important;
}
a:visited,
span.a,
span.a:link {
color: #888 !important;
}
div, td {
color: white !important;
}
table.histTable td {
color: black !important;
}
div#navbar div,
table,
td,
div
{
background: black !important;
}
input[title=Search] {
background: black !important;
border: 1px solid #888 !important;
padding: 0 3px !important;
}
input[title='Google Search'] {
background: black !important;
border: 1px solid #888 !important;
padding: 0 3px !important;
margin-bottom: 20px !important;
}
img[src='/intl/en_ALL/images/logo.gif'] {
padding-top: 110px;
height: 0px !important;
overflow: hidden !important;
background: url(http://*************/google-black-276x110.jp
}
a#logo span {
background-image: url(http://*************/google-black-150x78.jpg) !important;
}
img[src='/images/google_sm.gif'] {
background-image: url(http://*************/google-black-150x78.jpg) !important;
padding-top: 78px;
height: 0px !important;
overflow: hidden !important;
}
div#gbarl {
display: none !important;
}
}
mod parent up, a lot.
The article references a DOE article from decades ago - and clearly before the predominance of LCDs - and another article full of comments about how the tests didn't bear this out on LCDs.
And if you REALLY want to save money on your CRTs, this is small potatoes compared to having a power strip for you monitor so you can cut all power to it at night - modern CRTs have a very substantial residual drain to keep the heater warm.
And you can set your machine to monitor-off earlier than sleeping - and since it wakes up from this fast, there aren't a lot of downsides. (This helps CRTs and LCDs...)
Finally, in many LCDs you can simply turn down the backlight - this is generally the largest power component in an LCD.
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