Sources
Where the numbers in “Can I take a shower today?” come from. They are rough estimates, and companies do not publish exact water use per prompt, video or search. We pick the highest values we could find (a worst-case view), so the real water use is probably lower. Some values come from measurements; others are “assumption based on” a measured value, which means we scaled it, and we say how.
Daily budget: 100 L
The United Nations General Assembly recognized that 50 to 100 liters of water per person per day are needed for basic personal and domestic needs. We use the top of that range.
Water per use
Water is estimated from energy: every value uses 4.19 liters of water per kWh, which includes the water used to make the electricity, not only the water used for cooling. Where there is no direct measurement, we scale from a measured value by how much data the activity uses, and we always round up.
| What | Value | Basis |
|---|---|---|
| AI prompt | 50 mL | Rounded up from academic estimates (about 500 mL per 20–50 prompts). Companies report much less: about 0.25 mL (Google, Gemini) and 0.3 mL (OpenAI). |
| AI image | 48 mL | A 2023 study measured image models. The least efficient one used 11.49 kWh per 1,000 images (11.5 Wh each), which gives 48 mL. The average model used 2.9 Wh per image (12 mL). |
| AI video | 0.39 L per second | About 0.94 kWh per 10-second video (an independent estimate for Sora 2) × 4.19 L/kWh. Other estimates are lower: for example, about 90 Wh per video. |
| Search | 1.3 mL | Google reported 0.3 Wh per search (2009). Google’s newer figure for a Gemini prompt is similar (0.24 Wh). × 4.19 L/kWh. |
| Streaming | 0.42 L per hour | The IEA estimates 0.077 kWh per hour for streaming Netflix. We round up to 0.1 kWh × 4.19 L/kWh. |
| Social media | 0.42 L per hour | Assumption based on streaming. Feeds play video but also show photos and text, so the streaming value is an upper limit. |
| Video calls | 0.42 L per hour | Assumption based on data use. Group video calls use about 0.8–2.5 GB per hour, and HD streaming uses about 3 GB per hour. We use the streaming value as an upper limit. |
| Shopping | 0.30 L per hour | Assumption based on streaming. Pages full of images use much less data than HD video, so we use about 70% of the streaming value. |
| Cloud apps & docs | 0.15 L per hour | Assumption based on data use. Documents and drives send little data, but design tools and maps send more. We use 1.5 times the music value. No direct figure exists. |
| Music | 0.10 L per hour | Based on data use. Music uses 40–150 MB per hour, which is 1–5% of HD video. We use 0.10 L, about 5 times higher than that scaling, to stay on the safe side. |
| Messaging & email | 0.10 L per hour | Assumption based on data use. These are mostly text, photos and voice notes, which use less data than music. We use the music value as an upper limit. |
Why these numbers are high
We count the energy of the whole chain (your device, the network and the data center) as if it all happened in data centers. For streaming, the IEA says data centers use only about 5% of the energy, the network about 23% and your device about 72%.
Links
- Making AI Less “Thirsty”: Uncovering and Addressing the Secret Water Footprint of AI Models (academic study on prompts)
- Power Hungry Processing: Watts Driving the Cost of AI Deployment? (energy per image)
- IEA: The carbon footprint of streaming video (0.077 kWh per hour, and how it is split)
- DatacenterDynamics: Google reveals the energy used for each search (0.3 Wh per search)
- Sora 2 and the environmental impact of OpenAI (Google’s Gemini figures and the video energy comparison)
- Gizmodo: all the bad things that can happen when you generate a Sora video (OpenAI’s 0.3 mL figure and the 90 Wh estimate)
- Reclaimed Systems: every Sora video burns 1 kWh (the 0.94 kWh and 4.19 L/kWh figures)
- Make Tech Easier: how much data streaming services use (Netflix and Spotify data per hour)
- SatelliteInternet.com: how much data Zoom uses (video call data per hour)
This extension runs only in your browser and sends nothing anywhere. It never stores what you type. On Luma only, it checks your prompt for the words "image" or "video" on the page, so it can tell which one you asked for. It is not made by or connected to any of the companies or websites it names.