Your digital day
Say how often you do each of these in a day to see what a year of it comes to. Nothing you enter leaves your browser.
Left out for now, with no figure that fits yet: an AI video and an email.
A year of it
Enter how often you do something to see a year of it.
The figures it uses
Each is taken unchanged from one claim in the ledger.
- AI chat prompt (Google's median Gemini text prompt, May 2025), energy: a median of 0.24 Wh per text prompt; data centre
- AI chat prompt (Google's median Gemini text prompt, May 2025), co2: a median of 0.03 g CO2e per text prompt; data centre
- AI chat prompt (Google's median Gemini text prompt, May 2025), water: a median of 0.26 mL of water (consumption) per text prompt; data centre
- AI image (mean of eight open models, one at a time on GPU servers, 2024 benchmark), energy: a mean of 2.907 Wh per image generated (published as: 2.907 kWh per 1,000 queries (Table 2; the text rounds it to 2.9kWh); converted from kWh per 1,000 to Wh per one); servers
- Web search (Google's 2009 estimate), energy: a mean of 0.3 Wh per Google search (published as: 0.0003 kWh of energy per search, or 1 kJ (converted from kWh to Wh)); data centre
- Web search (Google's 2009 estimate), co2: 0.2 g CO2 per Google search; data centre
- Video streaming (IEA, 2019 global average), energy: 0.077 kWh per hour of streaming video; end to end
- Video streaming (IEA, 2019 global average), co2: 36 g CO2 per hour of streaming video; end to end
- Video call, camera on (4G mobile network only, France), co2: 10.2 to 21.6 g CO2e per hour of video call with the camera on; network
- Website visit (Website Carbon's global average page), co2: 0.36 g CO2e per page view; end to end
The everyday comparisons
- A cup of tea: 24.7 Wh, the ideal energy to heat 250 mL of water from 15 to 100 °C, before any kettle's losses (our calculation).
- A shower: 1.92 kWh to heat an average-length mixer shower's 60 litres (the Energy Saving Trust's figures, our arithmetic).
- A car mile: 0.26699 kg CO2e, an average car of unknown fuel, tailpipe only (DESNZ 2026); used only for CO2e figures.
- Each activity counts different things, so they are never added together.
Heating one cup's water (250 mL, 15 °C to 100 °C) takes 4.18 J per gram per °C × 250 g × 85 °C = 88,825 J, or 24.7 Wh: the ideal, before any kettle's own losses. Our calculation.
Heating one shower's water: 60 litres × 27.6 °C × 0.00116 kWh per litre per °C = 1.92 kWh, before any boiler's losses: our arithmetic on the Energy Saving Trust's figures.
- A mile in an average car: 0.26699 kg CO2e per mile. Greenhouse gas reporting: conversion factors 2026 (full set for all users), Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, 2026-06-11.
- An average-length mixer shower's water: 60 litres per shower. At Home with Water, Energy Saving Trust, 2013-07.
- How much a shower's water is heated: 27.6 °C per shower, from 13.4 °C mains to 41.0 °C. At Home with Water (Appendix A, water temperatures), Energy Saving Trust, 2013-07.
- Energy to heat a litre of water by one degree: 0.00116 kWh per litre per °C. At Home with Water (Appendix A), Energy Saving Trust, 2013-07.