Saturday, March 29, 2008

Google "turns off the lights."

I'm a big fan of Google. Are they perfect? No. No one is and if they try to say they are, then they're probably even more corrupt than you could possibly imagine. Anyways, Google is trying to do something nice. They're "turning the lights out" on Google's homepage, rendering it as white text on a black background. (known as knockout text) This is meant to promote Earth Hour and is also possibly a wink to various criticisms of Google that using a white background for its super popular search engine is wasting tons of electricity. An alternative web front was created in response and named Blackle. Blackle uses Google's search engine, but has black background with grey text. But does this actually help cut down on used electricity? The answer, it seems, is... "well, sort of, but not really."



The Wall Street Journal's The Numbers Guy discusses a bit of Blackle and references a study showing nominal to nearly no energy consumption difference with LCD monitors. Those big, bulky CRT monitors (that I use) on the other hand, do see noted differences.

Blackle is down today (because of high traffic from recent blog links, according to owner Toby Heap of Sydney, Australia). But the Google cache version of the site’s “about” page, which carries some white screen space from Google atop the black page, explains that the site was inspired by a post this past January on the blog ecoIron claiming that if Google went all-black, it could save 750 megawatt-hours a year (a megawatt-hour is one million watt-hours...). But as ecoIron noted, the savings are most likely to accrue from older CRT (cathode-ray tube) monitors, rather than the more-modern, more-compact, more-energy-efficient LCD (liquid crystal display) screens that have come to dominate the market (representing three quarters of all monitors world-wide as of last year, by some estimates).

On LCD displays, color may confer no benefit at all. In response to my inquiry, Steve Ryan, program manager for Energy Star’s power-management program, asked consulting firm Cadmus Group to run a quick test by loading Blackle, Google and the Web site of the New York Times (which is, like Google, mostly white on-screen) on two monitors — one CRT, one LCD — and connecting a power meter to both. “We found that the color on screen mattered very little to the energy color consumption of the LCD monitor,” said David Korn, principal at Cadmus, which specializes in energy and environment, and does work for the government. The changes were so slight as to be within the margin of error for the power meter. Tweaking brightness and contrast and settings had a bigger effect. The bulkier CRT screen did see savings with Blackle of between 5% and 20%. Mr. Korn emphasized that this was a quick test, not a rigorous study.

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Interestingly enough, many LCD monitors actually use more electricity rendering a black background. Techlogg explains why.

All of our LCD monitor tests showed that Blackle actually causes a rise in monitor power consumption over the standard white Google search engine page. The results also match what is known about LCD design – that the display has to block the passage of light from the backlight getting through to the front of the screen and in order to do that, more power is required.

On average, our four LCD monitors saw a rise of 0.35W by using Blackle instead of Google.

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Techlogg later did another test using a wider array of LCD monitors.

There’s no argument that on CRT monitors, Blackle does reduce the power consumption but it’s not by the 15-watts claimed. We tested the four CRT monitors we could get our hands on and found that only one unit, an older 22-inch Compaq, showed the 15-watts or more power differential.

But with the LCD monitor market penetration worldwide now beyond 75%, it’s the LCD monitor power consumption that’s just as, if not more, important.

The most interesting aspect we found was that of the LCD monitors we tested of size 22-inches or less, all showed an increase in power consumption using Blackle. Beyond the 22-inch mark however, five of the six models showed a fractional decrease in power consumption when using Blackle, except the ViewSonic VX2835wm, which showed a 2.2-watt increase.

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So, it seems that the "Black Google" savior is a myth. Especially considering how prevelant LCDs in today's market are. Add in that the vast majority of those LCDs are under 22 inches and, therefore, actually use more energy to render Blackle and it quickly becomes clear that Blackle will actually boost global energy consumption (albeit, marginally) rather than reduce it. And don't think that Google doesn't know this. Their "Green Czar" even posted a blog entry on it August of last year.

Reducing climate change by saving energy is an important effort we should all join, and that's why we're very glad to see the innovative thinking going into a variety of solutions. One idea, suggested by the site called "Blackle" (which is not related to Google, by the way, though the site does use our custom search engine), is to reduce energy used by monitors by providing search with a black background. We applaud the spirit of the idea, but our own analysis as well as that of others shows that making the Google homepage black will not reduce energy consumption. To the contrary, on flat-panel monitors (already estimated to be 75% of the market), displaying black may actually increase energy usage. Detailed results from a new study confirm this.
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All of this begs the question, "why did Google go black for Earth Hour, then?" Firstly, the didn't go completely black. Just the hompeage did. The move was more about publicity than about hard numbers. The drastic change is a stark contrast to what you normally see, and doing so peaks interest and will help to raise awareness about reducing energy consumption. It is a very effective way to deliver the message. However, unless you use an old-fashioned CRT monitor, you will not actually be saving any power by using Blackle. In fact, it will be the exact opposite. Worry not, energy-consumption-worrisome folk! Techlogg, the same people that initially debunked Blackle's claims, do have a list of five much more noticeable ways to curb your computer's energy use.

  • Turn off your PC after work
  • Drop the screen brightness
  • Switch off your ADSL modem at night
  • Switch everything off at the wall
  • Set your desktop PC power management

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1 comment:

Chris Cobb said...

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Here is a handy solution to wasting energy through electronics. Check out Belkin's Conserve Surge protector. It has a wireless switch that controls 6 of the 8 outlets on the surge protector. check it out HERE