Be Green – Saving energy with black background

Believe me or not, this is true. OK, only half-true. I don’t like to admit it for some reason, but it seems that some types of monitors consume less energy if they have to show black pixels.

The idea is, that while a completely dark website uses 74 Watts to display, a completely white consumes much less, only 59 Watts. (source: ecoIron) This surfaced the net a good while ago, back in 2002. It popped out from Mr. Roberson’s mind and it rapidly traveled through the internet.

Then the guys from Google adopted the idea, too, and so was born the Black Google you can see on the Earth’s Day.

Why is the whole idea only half-true? Well. While CRT (Cathode Ray Tube, you know, those monitors which are not flat) monitors do consume less showing only black pixels, this doesn’t apply to the modern LCD monitors. The answer of why is hidden in the nature and architecture of the two monitors: if a CRT monitor has to show a dark pixel, it doesn’t send electricity in that particular area of the screen saving you a tiny money. Well, that is over-simplified, but in short, that’s the answer.

So, if you want to be a “green” developer or web designer, create mostly black web sites. Else follow the traditional way.