Blackle: Is it really the First Green Search Engine and why

There is a new website called Blackle, which has the ambitious goal of becoming a new type of green search engine. It has been specifically designed with the eco-conscious web surfers in mind. This author set about to investigate whether the design and the claims made about its eco-design are in fact true.

It should be noted that this website serves as gateway for Google searches and comes with a completely different look. The designers have reversed the Google color scheme so that result pages are shown in colored text with a black back drop. They say that this is done in order to decrease the energy utilization of computer monitors.

It seems that the idea behind this eco-friendly search engine came from a claim that if Google changed its design to black, then it would save a huge amount of power and energy.

However it is important to note that the savings made are likely to come from older monitors, such as the CRT monitors, which many people have now upgraded from. With an older cathode ray tube monitor, you will certainly make energy savings with a black background, but as many consumers now use thin screen, energy efficient monitors, the savings are likely to be much smaller.

These days it is common to find LCD monitors on the desks of most offices and in the homes of a majority of people. As such, the savings are going to be much less. It has actually been discovered that the computer monitor’s use of color can only minimally affect the change in the energy output. In fact, there was a consulting firm that ran a test and found that loading Google Blackle on a CRT monitor and a LCD monitor made very little difference.

David Korn, principal at Cadmus who ran the test uncovered data showing that the screen color just didn’t really matter when it came to the cosumption of energy caused by the color of the LCD monitor.  As such, this shows that the difference is so small that it is almost hard to trace. In fact, the only major changes that they saw from the test occured when they made changes to the monitor’s contrast and brightness settings.

As you can see from the data above, it seems that the idea of creating an eco-friendly search engine needs to be re-thought. It is still a possibility but we will need to wait a little longer.

Pat Lindle is a business owner and an environmentalist.  Pat makes Blackle the default search engine for all computers in his metal deck / steel deck business to ensure that his company is as environmentally conscious as possible, at all times.