> So, if I wanted to analogize the energy usage of my use of coding agents, it’s something like running the dishwasher an extra time each day, keeping an extra refrigerator, or skipping one drive to the grocery store in favor of biking there. To me, this is very different than, in Benjamin Todd’s words, “a terrible reason to avoid” this level of AI use. These are the sorts of things that would make me think twice.
I end up shrugging. For a Claude Code power user, today, a day's use uses less electricity than a morning commute in an electric car. To say nothing of the costs to keep your workstation running, your building heated or cooled, etc. Not quite a rounding error, but a relatively minor component of overall usage.
At least for programming usage the power usage seems worth it. For starting up 1 million bots to argue with each other on facebook it's obviously a total waste.
At any rate, the power usage will become more apparent when these products stop being subsidised, where power usage is being charged to the end user.
I also was under the impression that queries cost were mostly meaningless, but it seemed only is true for fresh sessions and short queries. I have to say, the result is less dramatic than I expected but still more significant for heavy users (such as myself).
I'm not sure it's even a particularly relevant comparison to an hour of use of various other electronic devices. I'm sure the median user is running a lot fewer queries than a Claude Code power-user, but I would guess it's still more than one in a typical session.
Here's a post that makes an estimate:
https://www.simonpcouch.com/blog/2026-01-20-cc-impact/
> So, if I wanted to analogize the energy usage of my use of coding agents, it’s something like running the dishwasher an extra time each day, keeping an extra refrigerator, or skipping one drive to the grocery store in favor of biking there. To me, this is very different than, in Benjamin Todd’s words, “a terrible reason to avoid” this level of AI use. These are the sorts of things that would make me think twice.