Kardashev scale

Homo Sapiens, or humans, are a civilization on Earth that are considered Type 0.75 as of 2021.

Physicist and futurist Michio Kaku suggested that, if humans increase their energy consumption at an average rate of 3 percent each year, they may attain Type I status in 100–200 years, Type II status in a few thousand years, and Type III status in 100,000 to a million years.

Carl Sagan suggested defining intermediate values (not considered in Kardashev's original scale) by interpolating and extrapolating the values given above for types I (1016 W), II (1026 W) and III (1036 W), which would produce the formula K=(logP-6)/10 where K is a civilization's Kardashev rating and P is the power it uses, in watts. Using this extrapolation, a Type 0 civilization, not defined by Kardashev, would control about 1 MW of power, and humanity's civilization type as of 1973 was about 0.7 (using 10 terawatts (TW) as the value for 1970s humanity).

In 2021, the total world energy consumption was 584.5 exajoules (162,369 TWh), equivalent to an average power consumption of 18.8 TW or 0.75 on Sagan's interpolated Kardashev scale.