Black is the new Green

With energy consumption and the environment becoming central concerns, Google has stepped into the frame to create a search engine front window that's a little bit greener - because it goes back to black.

Why black?

Well, when your screen is white - whether it's depicting an empty word processor page, or the Google search webpage, your computer consumes approximately 74 watts of power...

...but when screens are black the computer consumes just 59 watts of power.

This was first spotted by tech columnist Mark Ontkush, who wrote an article about the energy saving that would be achieved if Google had a black screen, taking into account the huge number of page views its search webpage enjoys.

Ontkush said that according to his calculations, 750 mega watts/hour per year would be saved if Google just went black to go green.

Google was listening.

In response to Ontkush's words, Google has created a black version of its search engine, called Blackle. It's functionally exactly the same as the white version , but with lower energt consumption.

You can use it here.

Now I guess it's time to apply pressures to other big online websites to move to fade to black on their webpages, because black is the new green.

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Comments received

nom said on Wednesday, 25 July 2007

hey Jonny,

this chap (Mark Ontkush) may well have calibrated the difference in power use for displaying light and dark areas on a screen - but I'd hardly say he first spotted the fact that there is a benefit to making a screen display black rather than white

check out the Apple article ...

artnum=12257

(not able to post full link)

it's from 1993 - and modified in 1999 and states known the benefit of using black as a desktop pattern as a way of saving battery power with laptops

still, fair play to Mr Ontkush as I like the black google page (might just be the novelty value though?)

AlanAudio said on Wednesday, 25 July 2007

Could somebody kindly explain to me how this makes any difference on an LCD monitor - the only type that Apple currently sell ?

The way an LCD works is to have a back-light which is continually lit and the LCD screen is between it and the viewer, selectively masking parts of the screen to create graphics and text.

Whatever the colour of the image, the back light will still consume as much power as it always does.

nom said on Thursday, 26 July 2007

Alan,

I'd thought so too - but Apple did (in rather old article) mention using black rather than white as a way of preserving battery power in laptops

AlanAudio said on Thursday, 26 July 2007

Nom, do you have a URL for that article ?


It simply doesn't sound plausible to me that it could be possible to save 20% of the power used by a computer and LCD screen when using the method described.


I'm prepared to concede that there may be power savings when displaying a predominantly black image on a CRT screen, but Apple hasn't sold CRT screens for ages and they're largely dying out elsewhere too. CRT displays are not considered green anyway for other reasons.


The original article that Google link to was published in 2002 and used equipment sold between 2000 and 2001. However that article is about energy consumption and compares power consumption when on, in sleep, deep sleep and stand by in various monitors and with different computers.


I spotted nothing that referred to power savings from black images.

nom said on Friday, 27 July 2007

when I tried posted link to article before it wouldn't let me post

I'll try agin with orig bit omitted

docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=12257

or google "powerbook battery conservation black" and see result 3rd from top

bsimpsen said on Wednesday, 01 August 2007

Unfortunately, this is either a hoax, or a terribly poorly researched topic. While it's true that a CRT will draw slightly less power when dark, an LCD will draw more. The quiescent (transparent) state of an LCD pixel is white. It takes a small amount of extra power to drive a pixel black.

While a black web page might save a watt or two now, while CRTs predominate, in a few years black will be wasting energy.

My 22" LCD draws 40W on an all white page and 43W on an all black page.

Caveat Emptor. Reading something here does not make it a fact.

tycho2 said on Wednesday, 01 August 2007

"Google was listening."

Were they? Then why didn't they make a black page. The page you linked to was created by a Marketing Firm that knows nothing about energy savings, which appears to be twice as much as MacWorld knows.