Video Generation

Seedance 2.0 Environmental Impact

Q: How much energy does Seedance 2.0 use per query?

Each Seedance 2.0 query consumes approximately 280 Wh of energy. This is 933x more than a traditional Google search (~0.3 Wh).

Q: What is Seedance 2.0's carbon footprint?

Based on the carbon intensity of its inference location (Volcano Engine (China)), each Seedance 2.0 query produces approximately 154g of CO2.

Q: How does Seedance 2.0 compare to a Google search?

A Seedance 2.0 query uses 933x more than a traditional Google search in terms of energy consumption. A Google search uses approximately 0.3 Wh, while Seedance 2.0 uses 280 Wh per query.

Q: How much water does Seedance 2.0 use?

Each Seedance 2.0 query consumes approximately 1035 mL of water, primarily used for cooling the data centers that process the request.

ExtremeEstimated

#1 on Artificial Analysis video leaderboard (1,269 Elo) — native audio

Architecture: Unified audio-video generation
Provider: ByteDance

280.0 Wh

Energy per query

154.0 g

CO₂ per query

1.03 L

Water per query

933x more than

vs Google search

Energy per query

280.0 Wh

933x more than a Google search (0.3 Wh)

CO2 per query

154.0 g

China grid (550 gCO₂/kWh)

Water per query

1.03 L

~1 queries to fill 1 litre

Processing location

Volcano Engine (China)

Provider

ByteDance

How does Seedance 2.0 compare?

Ranked #147 of 152 models by energy per query

View full comparison

Detailed Breakdown

Energy Consumption

Seedance 2.0 leads the Artificial Analysis text-to-video leaderboard at 1,269 Elo, beating Veo 3, Sora 2, and Gen-4.5. At ~280 Wh per clip, it features unified audio-video joint generation with phoneme-level lip-sync in 8+ languages. Up to 20-second clips.

ByteDance — Seedance 2.0 (Feb 2026)

Power Source & Carbon

Runs on ByteDance's Volcano Engine in China (550 g CO2/kWh). Video generation on China's coal-heavy grid carries substantial carbon burden.

IEA — China energy outlook

Water Usage

At ~1,035 mL per clip — over a litre of water for 10 seconds of video.

Nature — AI water footprint in China

About Seedance 2.0

Seedance 2.0 sits at the high end of AI energy consumption at 280.0 Wh per generating one short video clip — over 933x what a Google search uses. ByteDance's video generation model, released in February 14, 2026, #1 on artificial analysis video leaderboard (1,269 elo) — native audio. The extreme energy cost reflects the computational complexity of video generation: generating coherent frames across both space and time.

These figures are estimates derived from hardware specifications and API benchmarks — ByteDance has not published official energy data for Seedance 2.0. Actual consumption may vary significantly depending on batching, quantisation, and infrastructure optimisations that we cannot observe from outside.

Seedance 2.0 in Context

23x

phone charges per video

The video generation premium

One Seedance 2.0 generation uses 280.0 Wh — the equivalent of 23 full smartphone charges. Video generation requires running a diffusion model across both spatial and temporal dimensions, making it fundamentally more compute-intensive than text or image tasks. This is not an efficiency problem to be solved; it is an inherent characteristic of the task.

What does your Seedance 2.0 usage cost the planet?

Use our calculator to estimate your personal environmental footprint based on how often you use Seedance 2.0.

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Frequently Asked Questions

How much energy does Seedance 2.0 use per query?

Each Seedance 2.0 query consumes approximately 280.0 Wh of energy. This is 933x more than a traditional Google search (~0.3 Wh).

What is Seedance 2.0's carbon footprint?

Based on the carbon intensity of Volcano Engine (China), each query produces approximately 154.0 g of CO2. The grid in this region has a carbon intensity of 550 g CO2/kWh with 30% renewable energy.

How much water does Seedance 2.0 use?

Each query consumes approximately 1.03 L of water, primarily used for cooling the data centers that process the request.

How does Seedance 2.0 compare to a Google search?

A Seedance 2.0 query uses 933x more than a Google search in terms of energy. A Google search uses approximately 0.3 Wh, while Seedance 2.0 uses 280.0 Wh.