Check out
http://au.blackle.com/ for an environmentally friendly search engine. Confused? Intrigued? Sceptical? Read on... Blackle was created by Heap Media to remind us all of the need to take small steps in our everyday lives to save energy. Blackle searches are powered by Google (there are a number of international versions available).
Blackle saves energy because the screen is predominantly black. "Image displayed is primarily a function of the user's colour settings and desktop graphics, as well as the colour and size of open application windows; a given monitor requires more power to display a white (or light) screen than a black (or dark) screen" (Roberson et al, 2002). I checked this out myself and the power saving only applies to the older CRT monitors and not LCD screens. Reason being all LCD screens are backlit irrespective of the colour displayed.
In January 2007 a blog post titled
Black Google Would Save 750 Megawatt-hours a Year proposed the theory that a black version of the Google search engine would save a fair bit of energy due to the popularity of the search engine. Since then there has been skepticism about the significance of the energy savings that can be achieved and the cost in terms of readability of black web pages.
Heap Media feel that seeing Blackle every time we load our web browser reminds us that we need to keep taking small steps to save energy. How can you help? 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.
Is this scientifically correct? Well, I'm not about to bet my house but hey if it's wrong it's a great story and a reminder to us to try and use less power or realistically not waste power.
