AI Footprint — Water & Energy per Prompt

About

AI uses real resources. This extension makes that visible.

Every time an AI responds to you, it estimates how much water and electricity that response consumed — and shows it directly under the message, on every conversation, across ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini.

The numbers are based on published research: energy figures from Epoch AI's 2025 model efficiency analysis, water estimates from Li et al. "Making AI Less Thirsty" (2023), which accounts for both datacenter cooling and the water used to generate the electricity. Estimates scale with how long the prompt and response are — longer exchanges cost more.

The popup works like an odometer. It tracks your totals for today and since you last reset — surviving browser restarts, new conversations, and tab reloads. Each response is counted exactly once, so reloading a page doesn't double the numbers.

What it does:
— Badge under every AI response showing water (ml/L) and electricity (Wh/kWh), with relatable equivalents like "4 drops" or "12% phone charge"
— Daily counter that rolls over at midnight
— Lifetime total across all three sites
— Reset button with confirmation

What it doesn't do:
— No account, no sign-in, no data leaves your browser
— No tracking, no analytics
— Nothing is sent anywhere — all storage is local to your machine

The estimates are approximations. They're derived from aggregate figures, not live API telemetry, so treat them as order-of-magnitude awareness rather than exact readings. The methodology and constants are documented in the source code.