{"slug": "show-hn-energy-carbon-and-water-estimates-for-ai-content-shown-as-ranges", "title": "Show HN: Energy, carbon and water estimates for AI content, shown as ranges", "summary": "A new calculator estimates the energy, carbon, and water impact of AI content generation, providing ranges for LLMs, photo, and video models. The tool, built by an unnamed developer using published papers and public data, aims to make AI's environmental footprint understandable without login or paywall. Open-source models yield more confident estimates, while closed models rely on publicly available data.", "body_md": "Hi HN,\n\nI built this calculator because I noticed it's easy to know how much a LLM costs per token, but it's extremely difficult to know it's carbon footprint or power consumption. I created this as a reference based on some published papers and public information, and it helps to have a guide of the impact of photo and video generation using AI.\n\nI also added another factor about Token utilization, it's something that becomes important as the newer models start to use \"thinking\" modes to reach a conclusion. There is information up to earlier this year, so it's not possible to see the efficiency of newer models like OpenAI Sol or Kimi K3.\n\nAll the calculator does is to provide estimations and translate them in ordinary figures so people can understand it. There is no login required or any other type of paywall.\n\nAbout the models, it's easier to make estimates for Open Source models (of course) so there's more confidence on that data. For the closed ones, there are estimations based on public available data.\n\nPlease let me know if you have suggestions in how I can improve this calculator.\n\nComments URL: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49099601](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49099601)\n\nPoints: 1\n\n# Comments: 0", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/show-hn-energy-carbon-and-water-estimates-for-ai-content-shown-as-ranges", "canonical_source": "https://aicontentfootprint.com/", "published_at": "2026-07-29 16:29:14+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-07-29 16:53:18.312475+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["artificial-intelligence", "ai-tools", "ai-ethics", "ai-infrastructure"], "entities": ["OpenAI Sol", "Kimi K3"], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/show-hn-energy-carbon-and-water-estimates-for-ai-content-shown-as-ranges", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/show-hn-energy-carbon-and-water-estimates-for-ai-content-shown-as-ranges.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/show-hn-energy-carbon-and-water-estimates-for-ai-content-shown-as-ranges.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/show-hn-energy-carbon-and-water-estimates-for-ai-content-shown-as-ranges.jsonld"}}