What my AI use costs the planet
AI runs on electricity and water. I use a lot of it, so I'll show you how much, every month, in plain English. With everyday comparisons, and what I'm doing about it.
My monthly report
First report: 1 November 2026, covering October.
| Month | Energy | Water | That's about | What I did about it |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| October 2026 | Counting now. Published 1 November. | |||
How I measure it
I count how much I use AI each month, then multiply by the best published figures. When AI companies publish better numbers, I'll switch to them, and say so.
- The starting figure. Google has measured a typical text question to its AI at 0.24 Wh of electricity and 0.26 mL of water. That's about running an LED bulb for a minute and a half, and about five drops of water.
- Big jobs count more. Building a website or making a video takes far more than one question, so I count those as heavier, and round up, never down.
- Not every company publishes. Not every AI company publishes a per-question figure, including some of the ones I use. Until they do, I use the best figure available and say which one.
Source: Google Cloud, measuring the environmental impact of AI inference, August 2025.
What I'm doing about it
- Ask once, ask well. My 10/80/10 rule means a clear question up front, so there's less back and forth. Fewer wasted prompts, less energy.
- A light website. This site is plain, fast pages, with no tracking scripts and videos under a megabyte.
- No idle servers. The site runs on Cloudflare's network, which only does work when someone visits. There's no server of mine humming away overnight.
- Keeping it in context. A month of my AI use sits beside everyday things like a coffee, a drive or a kettle boil, so you can judge it for yourself.
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