Tip #4359 - Saving Energy With Your Computer Printer Friendly Version | E-Mail This Tip
Saving
Energy With Your Computer
I don't know if
any of you noticed or not, but for one day back in October (2007),
Google changed their homepage from a white background to a pitch black
background. It was only shown for those accessing Google from San
Francisco, CA, but it started quite a stir. Many thought Google was
working to save energy, but according to Google themselves, that was
not the case. They later announced that going black was done to support
the "Lights Out San Francisco" promotion and to convince
everyone in San Francisco to flip off all their lights for at least
one hour in October. Rather interesting, huh?!
Now, you're probably
wondering how changing the background of a Web site from white to
black can save energy, right? Well, some computer monitors (about
25 percent of the monitors in the world) still contain a cathode ray
tube, which uses about 75 watts to display a Web page that is entirely
white. The cathode ray tube (sometimes called the CRT) is a type of
monitor that uses a vacuum tube to produce images by shooting an electron
beam at a phosphorescent surface. Do you remember the "picture
tube" on the television receiver? The CRT in a computer monitor
is very similar to the "picture tube" that used to appear
on televisions.
On the other hand,
the CRT type of monitor only uses 60 watts to display a Web page that
is completely black. When thinking about that, we then have to take
a look at the number of hits the Google homepage receives everyday,
which is about 200 million. Therefore, about 50 million hits per day
are being accessed by users who have cathode ray tube monitors, which
many believe is a large amount of energy going to waste. In response,
several people and organizations have created all black background
search engines, such as Blackle.com
and BlackWebSearch.com,
which still use Google's engine to search the Internet.
Along with maybe
switching to those search engines, there are several other ways you
can save energy when using your computer. Here are a few:
-
Turn
off your computer and the monitor when you are not using them for
long periods of time.
-
Turn
down the brightness of your monitor.
-
When
shopping for a new computer, look for the words of "EnergyStar
4.0 Compliant."
-
Configure
your computer to turn off after about 20 minutes of non-use.
-
Though
screensavers are cool to watch, they don't save energy. Instead,
they use more graphics, which in turn, uses more energy. If you
can, choose a wallpaper design you could be happy seeing at all
times.
-
When
buying a new monitor, look at flat panel screens. They use about
half the energy of a normal monitor.
Saving energy
with your computer will not only save you money on your energy bill,
but it will also help out the environment in a small way. However,
when thousands of people take small steps to save energy, we can all
make a difference together. Start doing your part today!
~ Jack William
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