Midjourney V7 Environmental Impact
Major upgrade — improved anatomy, personalisation by default
- Architecture
- Diffusion model (proprietary)
- Provider
- Midjourney
Energy per query
8.0 Wh
27x more than a Google search (0.3 Wh)
CO2 per query
2.5 g
US East (Virginia) grid (450 gCO₂/kWh)
Water per query
15 mL
~67 queries to fill 1 litre
Processing location
Cloud (US)
Provider
Midjourney
Category
Image Generation
Grid carbon intensity
450 g CO2/kWh (25% renewable)
How does Midjourney V7 compare?
Detailed Breakdown
Energy Consumption
Midjourney V7 is the default Midjourney version since April 2025, with significantly improved hands, anatomy, and built-in personalisation. At ~8.0 Wh per image, it is one of the more energy-intensive image models — Midjourney prioritises quality over efficiency. V8 Alpha (March 2026) is 4-5x faster.
Power Source & Carbon
Midjourney runs on cloud GPU infrastructure. The company has not published environmental data.
Water Usage
At ~15 mL per image, reflecting the high compute requirements.
About Midjourney V7
Midjourney V7 is a image generation model from Midjourney, released in April 4, 2025. Major upgrade — improved anatomy, personalisation by default. Each query uses 8.0 Wh of energy and produces 2.5 g of CO₂. That's 27x the energy of a Google search — reflecting the computational demands of image generation.
These figures are estimates derived from hardware specifications and API benchmarks — Midjourney has not published official energy data for Midjourney V7. Actual consumption may vary significantly depending on batching, quantisation, and infrastructure optimisations that we cannot observe from outside.
Midjourney V7 in Context
The efficiency alternative
Imagen 3 performs the same type of task using just 2.5 Wh per query — 69% less energy than Midjourney V7. For a user sending 25 queries per day, switching would save 50.2 kWh per year.
Your yearly Midjourney V7 footprint
At 25 queries per day, your annual Midjourney V7 usage consumes 73.0 kWh — a meaningful fraction of household electricity. That produces 22.8 kg of CO₂.
Image vs text: the energy gap
Generating one image with Midjourney V7 uses 27x more energy than a text conversation with ChatGPT. The diffusion process that creates images requires many iterative passes through the model, each refining the image from noise — far more compute per output than generating text one token at a time.
Midjourney Midjourney Family
How energy efficiency has evolved across versions.
What does your Midjourney V7 usage cost the planet?
Use our calculator to estimate your personal environmental footprint based on how often you use Midjourney V7.
Calculate My ComputeFrequently Asked Questions
How much energy does Midjourney V7 use per query?
Each Midjourney V7 query consumes approximately 8.0 Wh of energy. This is 27x more than a traditional Google search (~0.3 Wh).
What is Midjourney V7's carbon footprint?
Based on the carbon intensity of Cloud (US), each query produces approximately 2.5 g of CO2. The grid in this region has a carbon intensity of 450 g CO2/kWh with 25% renewable energy.
How much water does Midjourney V7 use?
Each query consumes approximately 15 mL of water, primarily used for cooling the data centers that process the request.
How does Midjourney V7 compare to a Google search?
A Midjourney V7 query uses 27x more than a Google search in terms of energy. A Google search uses approximately 0.3 Wh, while Midjourney V7 uses 8.0 Wh.
Technical Details
Architecture
Diffusion model (proprietary)
Release date
2025-04-04
Open source
No