Saving energy from the computer

[Starrodkirby86]

There's a website I found that says about saving energy. How? Why, it's by making your monitor use low, desaturated and non-bright colors, also known as black and shades of gray. Ha. Ha. Ha. I probably made it sound not cool.

Well, I came across a place called blackle.com (Or a friend showed me actually) that is a black version of Google.com . No, I'm not being racist. A blog post in 2007 proposed that there can be thousands of megawatts saved had Google been using black as the background of their website. That's what blackle.com tries to do.

(Link to blog post: http://ecoiron.blogspot.com/2007/01/black-google-would-save-3000-megawatts.html )
(Link to blackle: http://www.blackle.com/ )

I can see it's a little useless, but if you like black, want to save energy, and do all that good stuff, might as well use it, no? :9

Oh, and I can see how the Dark Theme of CP can kick in for times like this.

[Reno-s--Joker]

I used to use blackle, until my sister said that the light is still shining the same, it just looks black. D: But I'm glad you posted that blog link - it seems they do have some scientific back up to the wattage business.

[winkio]

I always use gooooooogle.  That's right, 7 o's.  because I'm just that cool.

WARNING: I AM IN A BAD MOOD.  IF YOU DO NOT WANT TO READ AN ANGRY RANT, JUST SKIP THIS PART:

I am blatantly spamming this topic because this kind of stuff is useless in my opinion.  Compared to the power usage of your computer, your monitor is nothing, even if it is displaying pure white.  Compared to all the other stuff you waste, black backgrounds are pretty much 0% more effective.  You'd save more energy if everyone turned their brightness or contrast down by 50%.  Global warming is a problem, but the solution is not to devolve into a spartan society.  The solution is to ADVANCE our technology, develop new fuels, and learn how to produce better energy, not do stupid idiotic thing's like this for saving energy.  Because really, this isn't saving energy so much as making it LOOK like you are saving energy.  Thousands of megawatts = gigawatts.  If it was in the megawatt range, then it was LESS than 1000.  misinformation, in my opinion.  From a blog?  Also, you must understand how a monitor works.  creating the colors is a small fraction of the energy a monitor uses.

So what should you do if you want to save energy?  Here's the most effective way:  DON'T LEAVE SHIT ON WHEN YOU AREN'T USING IT!  Common sense, but so much more efficient that small tweaks.  But in the end, no matter how much energy you save, there will still be problems with the current infrastructure.

That is all.  This is only the first of many rants that I will write.

[Reno-s--Joker]

Minus the angry that was a very excellent post. ^-^;

[Starrodkirby86]

Want a good rant winkio? Then hear this article I read later.

Spoiler: ShowHide

As noted before on this non-blog, many self-titled environmentalists have no idea what they're talking about. For instance, this blog came up with the idea that a "black Google" would save 750 MWh/year (that's about 86 kW) because black pixels supposedly take less power to display than white pixels. The guy apparently failed to note that only obsolete CRT monitors do that, initially stating a 3000 MWh/year figure (see it in the URL, he also admits it). Apparently, when he found out that LCDs actually use more energy to display black than white (this comment on his blog agrees) he changed the figure to 750, a commendable action. Even so, his calculation is highly approximative at best. So it's easy to campaign for stuff without having the slightest idea what's going on. As CRT displays are being slowly but surely replaced with LCDs, his black background idea is actually going to result in increased energy dissipation. It's true that OLED displays might eventually favor his idea, but the point is he did no serious studies before launching an idea that thousands of sheeple intercepted and praised, leading to sites such as this, which was brought to my attention today. Its about page (where I learned about the naive but honest guy's blog) is full of smug about how much it protects the environment, while its front page mentions how much energy it saved. I guess if we take the approx. 1MWh stated and multiply it by 0.6/15 (measured watts increase in LCD consumption versus stated CRT watts decrease) we get about 40 kWh of wasted energy. At least it's not very much.

This is quite similar to your statement on how you're against it. However, one big point (At least what I read) is that it does make a difference, especially depending on what type of monitor you have.

That would mean the site Blackle is perfect for the old types of monitors but will become obsolete for LCD monitors, if this source is correct.

Hey, I don't mind if a little discussion comes through this.

[Blizzard]

Winkio, thank you for your insightful post, you're 100% right.

SRK, if you hadn't quoted that sentence, I would have said something similar to that.

Environmentalists talking bullshit is really the worst kind. They have NO idea what is going on or how stuff works. They just assume something stupid and then they try to pass it through as fact making idiots out of themselves. This is a great example. CRT displays do spend slightly less power for displaying dark pixels, but they still spend energy on it. LCD displays spend the same amount of energy for every pixel. They actually spend most energy on changing a pixel, not so much for displaying it. The main draining source in LCD monitors is the background light.

Man, do I hate ignorant people... ._.;