Kardashev scale

The Kardashev scale is a 1964 proposed by the Russian astronomer Nikolai Kardashev categorization of the level of development of extraterrestrial civilizations by their energy consumption.

Basic form

In its basic form it has three categories, are classified in the civilizations on the basis of their energy production.

• Type I: Civilization is on the technological level of today's [ d h 1964 ] Earth with an energy consumption of 4.1012 kWh. Later this was subsequently changed that civilization is able to use the full power available on a planet. That's about 1016-1017 W. ( For the earth, this value is slightly larger than 1.74 · 1017 W).
• Type II: Civilization is in a position to take advantage of the overall performance of their central star. That's about 4.1026 W.
• Type III: The civilization is able to use the overall performance of a galaxy. That's about 4.1037 W.

Human civilization is currently below Type I, as we are only able to use part of the available power on the earth. To replace the consumption of limited fossil resources through a wider use of solar energy, it also still requires substantial human development steps. The current status of human civilization is unofficially called type 0. Although intermediate values ​​in Kardaschows original proposal were not available, Carl Sagan has extrapolated the current status of the people to 0.7 by he started following formula for this:

Where K represents the resulting Zivilisationsmaßzahl and P is the available power measured in watts.

A hypothetical Type II civilization could use a Dyson sphere or a similar construct to use the full power of a star.

A Type III civilization could use the same methods as a Type II civilization, but extended to all the stars of a galaxy, or so far it uses an unknown agent.