What if I told you there was a search engine out there that was actually better than Google?! 

Well, okay, I’m cheating a little.  But, there really is a way to make things better, while you continue using Google for all your web-search needs.

It’s called Earthle and it’s the only “Energy Saving Google Custom Search Engine” you’ll need for a long time!  Here’s how its history page describes its origins:

In a January 2007 blog, Mark Ontkush, a leading expert in “green” computing calculated the following:

“Take at look at Google, who gets about 200 million queries a day. Let’s assume each query is displayed for about 10 seconds; that means Google is running for about 550,000 hours every day on some desktop. Assuming that users run Google in full screen mode, the shift to a black background will save a total of 15 (74-59) watts. That turns into a global savings of 8.3 Megawatt-hours per day, or about 3000 Megawatt-hours a year. Now take into account that about 25 percent of the are CRTs, and at 10 cents a kilowatt-hour, that’s $75,000, a goodly amount of energy and dollars for changing a few color codes.”

When I first encountered it a few weeks ago, I couldn’t help but smile at the power and the sheer simplicity of the idea! 

What a wonderful way to save tens of thousands of dollars, and several hundred megawatt-hours of energy, while you’re at it?!  I already use it as the default search engine in my IE7 (see instructions).  But, you can read Earthle’s “About” page to find out other ways of adopting this green technology.

Switch off Google, and switch on Earthle, today.  As with all good things, the time to do it is now!

Update : August 2009
See Also : Blackle.com