Google Celebrates "Earth Hour" By Using More Energy

"Earth Hour" is 8 PM - 9 PM Saturday night, and the event, as envisioned by the World Wildlife Fund, is for everyone in the world to turn out their lights to save energy, reduce CO2 missions, and the like.

An excellent example is the step take by all the Canadian McDonald's restaurants, which will be turning off their lighted roof beams and signs during the hour. Don't worry, they'll still be serving food, and interior lights will be on, but according to McDonald's enough energy to power a typical Canadian city will be saved during the hour.

On Saturday, as Google likes to do on "special occasions," Google changed not just its logo, but its entire home page to demonstrate support for "Earth Hour." They changed their webpage to have a completely black background. Ironically, a study has shown that a completely black webpage actually uses more power. Of course, whether or not that's really true - well, read on.

The study wasn't conducted on Google, but on Blackle, a site developed using Google Custom Search, which cites a 2002 study from Judy Roberson, who tested a variety of CRT and LCD monitors and found that an all black screen consumed less energy than an all white screen on all of them.

However, a later study showed that while CRT monitors saved power across the board, only LCD monitors greater than 22" in size showed a decrease in power consumption, while several of those below 22" in size showed a minor increase in power use.

Meanwhile, Google itself indicated that the change in screen colior actually makes no difference, with modern display technology changing the "equation."

What do I think? I think even if there is a difference in power consumption, it's minor, and in most cases, Google's probably right - at least with newer displays. The 2002 study certainly used much older technology and I doubt it still holds true.

So, before readers give me a lot of flak, the point of this post is more to remind people about "Earth Hour" than to point out some grievous screw-up by Google. Really want to save some energy? Turn off your PC and go outside. It's a beautiful day.