How to measure the level of a civilization?
Dec 10, 2024
In 1964 the Soviet astrophysicist Nikolai Kardashev proposed an elegant scale: by the amount of energy a civilization is able to use.
Type I: a civilization able to use all the energy reaching its planet from its star. For Earth that’s on the order of 10^16–10^17 watts.
Type II: a civilization that has harnessed all the energy of its star. For the Sun that’s on the order of 10^26 watts (ten orders of magnitude more than Earth receives). At this level it becomes possible to build a Dyson sphere, a giant structure around the star to collect all of its energy.
Type III: a civilization that controls the energy of an entire galaxy, on the order of 10^36 watts for the Milky Way.
Where are we now? According to the BP Statistical Review for 2022, humanity consumes about 19.1 terawatts (1.91×10^13 watts).
Carl Sagan proposed a formula for measuring a civilization’s progress: K = (log₁₀ P - 6) / 10, where P is the energy consumed in watts.
By this formula a Type I civilization has a value of 1.0, Type II 2.0, and Type III 3.0. Humanity is currently at 0.73, meaning we’ve covered almost three quarters of the way to Type I on the logarithmic scale. In absolute numbers, though, the picture is different: we’d need to increase our energy consumption almost 10,000 times to reach Type I.
Originally posted in Russian on my telegram. This is a translation.