Save Energy Surfing the Web

When my friend Gordon hadn't heard of a neat web-related thing-a-magig, I knew I was onto something.

If you haven't heard, there's a new way to Google. It's called "Blackle" and here's why it's so cool: Blackle saves electricity.


Curious?

Check this out:

How is Blackle saving energy?

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 Custom Search.

Blackle saves energy because the screen is predominantly black. "Image displayed is primarily a function of the user's color settings and desktop graphics, as well as the color 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

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.

We believe that there is value in the concept because even if the energy savings are small, they all add up. Secondly we 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?

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".

So crawl over to Blackle today and have a look. I've already set my home page to Blackle.com. Okay, so the savings person to person is insignificant, and I probably won't noticed more than a cent or two difference in my electric bill...but the concept is still valid. If you're like me, Google is both your home page, and a page you visit three-thousand times a day. It's not hard to see that adding up as some serious wattage.

Enjoy!