With the World Mtoe trend from 1990 to 2021, it is interesting that the only drops were during the 2008 financial crisis and the 2020 COVID pandemic
The Kardashev scale is a method of measuring a civilization's level of technological advancement, based on the total energy usage of a civilization. The scale is exponential and hypothetical and regards energy consumption on a cosmic scale. It was proposed in 1964 by Nikolai Kardashev and modified in 1973 by Carl Sagan in his book The Cosmic Connection, which is the scale we use.
Carl Sagan defined intermediate values (not considered in Kardashev's original scale) by interpolating and extrapolating the values given 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 consumes, in watts. Using this extrapolation, an early Type 0 civilization, not defined by Kardashev, would consume about 1 MW (106 W) of power.
How to calculate the K rating
A toe is a "tonne of oil equivalent" which is 42 gigajoules and 1 Mtoe = 11.63 TWh (terawatts per hour).
Total Mtoe is primary energy found in nature and not yet engineered. It is all non-renewable and renewable, comprised of oil, coal, gas, minerals for nuclear power, solar, wind, hydro, biomass and geothermal. This total is used to calculate the K-rating.
Humanity's civilization type as of 1973 was about 0.7, using 7 101.3 Mtoe = 82 588 TWh arriving at an average hourly power consumption of 10 terawatts (TW) .
Annual Primary Energy sources and K ratings
| Year | Data source | Comments |
|---|---|---|
| 2018 | International Energy Agency (source 1 and source 2) | The world energy supply and consumption was 14 421 Mtoe = 167 716 TWh for the year . The calculation is 167716 / 365 / 24 to get an average hourly power consumption of 19.14 TW. The final calculation is (log 19 140 000 000 000 - 6) / 10 to make 0.73 on Sagan's extended Kardashev scale. |
| 2019 | BP data | 583.9 exajoules = 162194.44 TWh. |
| 2020 | BP data | 556.63 exajoules = 154619.44 TWh. |
| 2021 | Theworldcounts.com | Suggests 17.7 TW. The final calculation is (log 17 700 000 000 000 - 6) / 10 to make 0.72. This drop was due to the COVID-19 pandemic. |
| 2022 | BP data | Suggests a 6% increase from the previous year. The final calculation is (log 18 760 000 000 000 - 6) / 10 to make 0.727 which takes us back to 0.73. |
| 2023 | Energyinst.org | Saw a 1% increase, taking it to around 3% above the 2019 pre-COVID level. Continued recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, legacy supply chain issues, along with conflict in Ukraine, continued to impact the global energy sector. We are still 0.73. |
| 2024 | BP data | 635 exajoules from Energy Outlook report page 90 = 176389 TWh = 20.14 TW. We are still 0.73. |
Projections
EIA projects nearly 50% increase in world energy usage by 2050. This is about 29 TW which approaches 0.75 on the Kardashev scale in 2050. The exponential nature of the scale should not be underestimated. To get from Type 0.73 to Type 1 requires 500 times more energy. Every decimal point on the scale is 1000 times more than the previous. The difference between the start of Type 1 and the start of Type 2 is at least a billion times more. Massive increases in energy usage, technology and the multiplicative nature of having many home planets would contribute to moving up the scale. This is made more difficult by efficient usage of energy the more advanced a civilization gets.
This paper suggests that if nuclear fusion is achieved, which is an energy and industrial revolution, we are expected to reach Type 0.77 by the end of the twenty-first century. However, if the current energy structure does not change, and the human civilization follows its current trend, we will only reach Type 0.75 by the end of the twenty-first century.
Freeman Dyson calculated in 1959 that if mankind's Malthusian (exponential) growth rate in energy consumption were to continue, the human race would reach a crisis point within the next two to three millennia. At this point, all the non-renewable sources would be exhausted, and even renewable sources exploited on a planet-wide scale would be unable to cope with further demand. To provide for future growth, the human race will need to capture much more of the Sun's light with a Dyson sphere.
Michio Kaku suggested that if humans increase their energy consumption at an average rate of 3% each year, they may attain Type 1 status in 100–200 years, Type 2 status in a few thousand years, and Type 3 status in 100,000 to a million years. Kaku and others proposed extensions of the scale for Type 4 onwards. This varies between superclusters and the universe for IV, various levels of the multiverse for V, and godly universe-creators and matter manipulators for VI. We try to define this more carefully based on the infinity map.
Criticisms
Entropy and energy efficiency
An entropy limiting factor should also be considered in an adjustment to the scale. An advanced civilization will be able to perform vastly more tasks with less energy than we use today, and far less wastage due to friction. This was evident from 1920 to 1970 where the K-rating increased more rapidly than from 1970 onwards where we became more energy-efficient. One example is the transistor and die-shrink scaling. We are able to perform magnitudes more compute with magnitudes less energy usage. Another example is the electric car, which can go a lot faster than cars with combustion engines, using less energy. Energy efficiency is also important for transistor cooling and reducing die-cast sizes.
Landauer's principle
Another consideration for energy efficiency is Landauer's principle, pertaining to the lower theoretical limit of energy consumption of computation which is approximately 0.018 eV (2.9×10−21 J). Modern computers use about a billion times as much energy per operation, which means they can get more efficient by 9 orders of magnitude using nanomechanical computronium. In the far future a Matrioshka brain could get even more efficient using a Carnot engine. This is a setback and even a criticism of the Kardashev scale, and so to truly scale exponentially, one would have to consider a much higher multiplicative number of colonies across vast distances.
What are we able to do with 1 kg of matter?
- Burning that amount of fuel (oil/gas/coal) gives you the lowest amounts of energy in fossil fuel power stations or oil refineries.
- Nuclear fission would release more energy, and nuclear fusion even more, at the subatomic level in nuclear power stations.
- In the future, we will be able to release far more energy at the elementary or fundamental level, tearing quarks apart in quark reactors.
- An antimatter engine would be 300 times more powerful than nuclear fusion.
- We will be able to harness zero-point-energy, such that 1kg of matter could be used to boil all the world's oceans.
So the K-scale needs an update from "primary energy not engineered" to engineered primary energy. What we are doing with available energy should give us a higher rating.
A pessimistic estimate from Xenology
If the historical 3% growth rate is maintained, then by the year 2300 mankind's energy budget will be up to 2 x 1017 W, which is also the total power received from from the Sun to Earth. We will then face the most critical "energy crisis" in the history of Earth. All forms of energy (electrical, thermal, mechanical, nuclear) ultimately returns to the biosphere as heat, causing the global temperature to rise and the precarious energy balance of the biosphere begins to suffer irreversible damage. By the time artificial energy production equals total solar influx, the planet will have suffered serious ecological damage. Earth would no longer be inhabitable by humans, our lush green world converted into a stewing, steamy hellhole like Venus.
A safe level is likely the photosynthetic energy limit, or the total solar energy used by green plants worldwide which is about 4 x 1013 W. Using 1% of the total solar influx (1015 W) would be a critical limit, sufficient to melt the polar icecaps and thoroughly disrupt the entire ecology.
"We estimate, therefore, that the maximum upper limit of artificial energy generation for any Type 1 planetary culture limited to a single world in our galaxy is roughly 1015 watts".
Jevons Paradox
The Jevons Paradox explains a counterintuitive outcome: improving the efficiency of using a resource—like coal or energy—can actually lead to an increase in total consumption. This happens because efficiency lowers costs, which encourages greater overall use.
Imagine upgrading your car to one that uses much less fuel per mile. Intuitively, that should reduce total fuel use. But because it’s cheaper to drive, you might drive more often—or take longer trips—offsetting those efficiency gains
A civilization becomes more energy-efficient, reducing energy costs per task. This cost drop fuels greater usage and enables new applications, potentially raising total energy consumption. Thus, efficiency improvements might hasten a civilization’s shift to a higher type on the Kardashev Scale by increasing—not decreasing—its total energy use.
Roman numerals
From this research paper, the author made a note: "I shall use Arabic numerals for Kardashev’s types throughout this study, although it is a historical fact that Kardashev, and indeed most subsequent authors, used Roman numerals. Apart from the latter being outdated in general, I have two justifications specific to the problem at hand: (i) Arabic numeration enables natural introduction of fractional subtypes, like Type 2.5 civilization, etc. which was already a problem for Carl Sagan in 1970s; and (ii) there is no Roman numeral for zero, while it seems logically natural to introduce Type 0 civilization (and its fractional successors) as the pre-technological state of any intelligent community."
There has been a shift in how the Kardashev scale is represented, with many contemporary researchers advocating for Arabic numerals or decimals (e.g., Type 1.0, 2.0, 3.0) instead of the traditional Roman numerals (Type I, II, III). This change facilitates greater precision and accommodates fractional values, which are useful for indicating incremental progress between civilization types.
Why use Arabic numerals?
- Precision: Arabic numerals allow for decimal values, enabling more nuanced classifications. For instance, Carl Sagan estimated that Earth was at approximately Type 0.7 in the 1970s, and more recent assessments place us around Type 0.73.
- Scalability: The extended Kardashev scale includes additional types beyond the original three, such as Type 0.0 (biological) up to Type 4.0 (universal), corresponding to energy production levels from 10⁶ to 10⁴⁶ watts. This extension is more naturally expressed with Arabic numerals.
- Clarity: Using Arabic numerals helps avoid confusion, especially when discussing fractional types or when integrating the scale into mathematical models and equations.
This wiki aims to be scientifically accurate and reflect current thinking, and support fine-grained classifications (like Type 0.72 or 2.5). We also want to appeal to readers who are used to seeing decimal-based Kardashev scales in modern papers, YouTube explainers, and sci-fi discussions. Therefore the decision was made to move away from Roman numerals to decimals.