Kardashev scale

Kardashev scale projections ranging from 1900 to 2100.

The Kardashev scale is a general method of classifying how technologically advanced a civilization is, first proposed in 1964 by the Soviet astronomer Nikolai Kardashev. It had three categories, based on the amount of usable energy a civilization has at its disposal and increasing logarithmically:

• Type I — A civilization that is able to harness all of the power available on a single planet, approximately 10¹⁶ W. The actual figure is quite variable; Earth specifically has an available power of 1.74 ×10¹⁷ W (174 petawatts). Kardashev's original definition was 4 ×10¹² W. (Kardashev had originally defined Type I as a "technological level close to the level presently attained on earth", "presently" meaning 1964.)
• Type II — A civilization that is able to harness all of the power available from a single star, approximately 10²⁶ W. Again, this figure is variable; the Sun outputs approximately 3.86 ×10²⁶ W. Kardashev's original definition was 4 ×10²⁶ W.
• Type III — A civilization that is able to harness all of the power available from a single galaxy, approximately 10³⁶ W. This figure is extremely variable, since galaxies vary widely in size. Kardashev's original definition was 4 ×10³⁷ W.

All such civilizations are purely hypothetical at this point. However, the Kardashev scale is of use to SETI researchers, science fiction authors, and futurists as a theoretical framework.

To put the amount of energy conjectured by this scale into perspective, consider that the ten-second-long burst of neutrinos that follows a supernova releases roughly 10⁴⁶ joules (100 foes). This is roughly equivalent to 1,000 times the amount of energy that Kardashev speculated would be harnessed in a year by a Type III civilization.

Usage and examples

Human civilization is currently somewhere below Type I, as it is able to harness only a portion of the energy that is available on Earth. The current state of human civilization has thus been named Type 0. Although intermediate values were not discussed in Kardashev's original proposal, Carl Sagan argued that they could easily be defined by interpolating and extrapolating the values given above. He calculated humanity's current civilization to be 0.7 (at his time). He used a power output of ~10TW and the formula:

$K={\frac {\log _{10}{W}-6}{10}}$

where K is a civilization's Kardashev rating and W is its power output in watts. Note that Roman numerals must still be used for the integer part of a civilization's rating, while the fractional part is written in decimals.

A possible method by which Earth can advance to a Type I civilization is to begin the heavy use of ocean thermal energy conversion and wind turbines to obtain the energy received by Earth's oceans from the Sun. However, there is no known way to successfully utilize the full potential of Earth's energy production without complete coating of the surface with man made structures. In the near and medium future, this is an impossibility given the current lifestyle of humanity. Currently, we are already "harnessing" Earth's production through our dependence upon ecosystem services, which may prove more efficient and sustainable than our own technology well into the future. If humans choose never to fully substitute synthetics for nature's services on this planet, they may still achieve a Type I civilization by assuring that Earth's ecosystem services are maximally functional. A simpler and far less intrusive method would be to place solar collectors with sufficient surface area into orbit.

A hypothetical Type II civilization might employ a Dyson sphere or other similar construct in order to utilize all of the energy output by a star, or perhaps more exotic means such as feeding stellar mass into a black hole to generate usable energy. Alternatively, it may occupy a large number of solar systems, absorbing a small but significant fraction of the output of each individual star. A Type III civilization might use the same techniques employed by a Type II civilization, applied to all of the stars of one or more galaxies individually, or perhaps might use other mechanisms not yet proposed.

Possible timeline

Humanity's current history indicates a timeline roughly shown here. These values are approximate, and include future predictions, from 0.8 onwards. They use Sagan's extrapolated version of the scale.

	Type 0 Development of Civilization
	0.25 (108 W) Roman civilization	0.5 (1011 W) Industrial Revolution	0.6 (1012 W) 1891 to 1938 Modernity	0.7 (1013 W) 1989 Information age, Fission power	0.8 (1014 W) World government, Fusion power	0.9 (1015 W) Space elevators, the creation of an ecumenopolis	Type 0 to Type I transition
Trends:
$\Longrightarrow$	Increasing levels of technology. Up to 0.5, increasing levels of fragmentation, increasing energy usage, increasing area of habitation
$\Longleftarrow$	After 0.5, decreasing levels of fragmentation

Function as a teleology

When transformed from a scale of energy use measurement into a predictive, or normative, description of desirable future technology the Kardashev scale becomes teleological: it predicts an "end of history". As a description of past and future human history it should be compared with the Marxist theory of modes of production which makes similar assertions about combinations of technological and social structures, albeit across a shorter time span.

Civilization implications

There are many historical examples of civilizations undergoing large-scale transitions, such as the Industrial Revolution. The transition between Kardashev scale levels could potentially represent similarly dramatic periods of social upheaval, since they entail surpassing the hard limits of the resources available in a civilization's existing territory. A common speculation suggests that the transition from Type 0 to Type I might carry a strong risk of self-destruction since there would no longer be room for further expansion on the civilization's home planet, similar to a Malthusian catastrophe.

Contact constraints

For pre-Type I civilizations, it may be too costly to attempt contact with other more advanced civilizations because of the energy output needed. It has been predicted that in order to provide a reliable contact beacon of sufficient power to be noticeable to a Type II civilization, a beacon must output such high energy levels that the cost would be around US$1 billion per year in energy. As a result it has been suggested that civilization must advance into Type I before the energy required for reliable contact with other civilizations would not drain a civilization's economic resources. However, this argument from 1980 assumes omni-directional beacons, which may not be the best way to proceed. Advances in consumer electronics have made possible transmitters that can illuminate the stars only, and not the space between them. This can reduce the power and cost to levels that are reasonable with current (2007) earth technology.

Once civilizations have discovered each others' locations, the energy requirements for maintaining contact and exchanging information can be significantly reduced through the use of highly directional transmission technologies. In 1974, the Arecibo Observatory transmitted a message toward the M13 globular cluster about 25,000 light-years away, for example, and the use of larger antennas or shorter wavelengths would allow transmissions of the same energy to be focused on even more remote targets, such as those attempted by SETI.

Extensions to the original scale

The sub-Type I state that human civilization currently occupies was not originally included in the Kardashev scale but is now commonly referred to as "Type 0".

Zoltan Galantai has defined a further extrapolation of the scale, a Type IV level at 10⁴⁶W that is within a few orders of magnitude of the energy output of the visible universe. Such a civilization approaches or surpasses the limits of speculation based on current scientific understanding, and may not be possible. Frank J. Tipler's Omega point would presumably occupy this level, as would the Biocosm hypothesis. Galantai has argued that such a civilization could not be detected, as its activities would be indistinguishable from the workings of nature (there being nothing to compare them to).

However, Milan M. Ćirković has argued that "Type IV" should instead be used to refer to a civilization that has harnessed the power of its supercluster, or "the largest gravitationally bound structure it originated in". For the Local Supercluster, this would be approximately 10⁴² W.

Kaku has discussed a type IV civilization, which could harness "extragalactic" energy sources such as dark energy. See p.317 of Parallel Worlds.

Hypothetical futures

Science fiction, having extended these values has also provided guides for possible future changes associated with the fractionalized version of the Kardashev scale. One possible future is presented here. The majority of the assumptions presented here are derived from scientific literature. Nikolai Kardashev's article "On the Inevitability and the Possible Structures of Supercivilizations", where he explains that with increasing energy levels come increasing technology, decreasing cohesiveness, and varying likelihood of survival and contact, largely is a guide to this section. These civilizations and the changes within them are also referenced in Kardashev's papers "Cosmology and Civilization" and "Transmission of Information by Extraterrestrial Civilizations". The last framework for these explanations can be found at Energy and Culture, chapter 15. This article provides a much more detailed explanation than that which exists here. It presents a theoretical way to describe trends within more advanced civilizations, along with a specific description of different civilization types.

Type I

Researcher Michio Kaku quotes Dyson as calculating that Earth will achieve a Type I civilization around the year 2200. This estimate is based on a simple extrapolation of the current development rate of Earth's energy budget. Kaku has also stated in a Discovery Channel interview that this transition may occur 100 years from now, around 2107. He claims that the next generation will decide whether humans survive technological adolescence and reach Type I status. However, Kaku has also noted that there are significant hurdles mankind must overcome in time in order for our civilization to reach the higher statuses. A civilization which has not reached Type I status might be subject to the "uranium barrier" (global, political and social development are behind technological development), ecological collapse (which would require planetwide policy to solve), ice ages, asteroid collisions and nearby supernovas.

	Type I Single Planetary Civilization
	Early (1016 W to 1019 W)			Middle (1020 W to 1023 W)			Late (1024 W to 1026 W) (debatable)
	Near-space colonization, near-space industry, asteroid mining, planet mining for fuels and energy Kaku: "Mark Twain once said, 'Everyone complains about the weather, but no one does anything about it.' This may change with a Type I civilization, which has enough energy to modify the weather. They also have enough energy to alter the course of earthquakes, volcanoes, and build cities on their oceans."			First Interstellar travel			Stress caused by size of civilization; at this point it can fragment into multiple planetary civilizations—reversion from single civilization early in type 1. Construction begins on a Dyson Sphere, Alderson disk, or Ringworld.
Trends:
$\Longrightarrow$	Increasing levels of technology, increasing levels of space exploration, space-based energy sources increase, offworld civilization centers increase, increasing energy usage, increasing area of habitation
$\Longleftarrow$	Decreasing levels of centrality. Societies and civilizations increasingly are not the same, due to time differences breaking single social bonds. The Nemesis extinction factor (every 26 million years), nearby supernovae, and the death of the Sun can threaten civilizations at these levels.

Type II

According to Kaku, Kardaschev has estimated the development of such a civilization at the year 5200, based on the assumption that energy usage grows exponentially at 1% per year.

	Type II Civilization has extended to the entire Solar System
	Early (1026 W to 1029 W)			Middle (1030 W to 1033 W) (debatable)			Late (1034 W to 1036 W) (debatable)
	Dyson Sphere completion, exploration and colonization of nearby star systems, active SETI programs			star lifting and Shkadov thrusters, Planck scale particle accelerators			Stress caused by size of civilization; at this point it can fragment into multiple solar-system-based civilizations—reversion to single-star-based civilization early, automated galactic or intergalactic colonization effort may begin using von Neumann probes
Trends:
$\Longrightarrow$	Increasing levels of technology, exponential growth in stars that are colonized, centralized systems increasingly draw resources from further systems which have not had their resources harvested—driving increased expansion
$\Longleftarrow$	Decreasing levels of centrality, increasing likelihood of fragmentation into single star systems if resources cannot be adequately transferred from central sources, resource based wars may reemerge after disappearance during Type I. The death of the galaxy can threaten civilizations at these levels.

Type III

According to Kaku, Kardashev has estimated the development of such a civilization at the year 7800, because Kaku assumes that it will be possible to take shortcuts by using wormholes. (It is interesting to note that this is approximately the same time scale for the colonization of the galaxy that is postulated in Isaac Asimov’s space opera the Foundation series.) However, Dyson has argued that relativity "may delay the transition to a Type III civilization by perhaps millions of years" due to the light speed limit. Since our Milky Way galaxy is approximately 40,000–50,000 light years in radius, and our Sun is about 25,000 light years from the galaxy's center, it would take at least 65,000–75,000 years for our civilization to reach every part of the galaxy if no way around the light speed limit can be found. Most futurists estimate a time period of between 700,000 years and 1,000,000 years, based on past human migration models, for the colonization of the galaxy allowing for time to set up colonies, reproduce, and sent out expeditions to the next habitable star system.

	Type III Colonization of the Milky Way Galaxy has completed
	Early (1036 W to 1039 W) (debatable)			Middle (1040 W to 1043 W) (debatable)			Late (1044 W to 1046 W) (debatable)
	(Continued) colonization of nearby galaxies.			Possible intermultiverse travel
Trends:
$\Longrightarrow$	Increasing levels of technology, centralized systems increasingly draw resources from further systems which have not had their resources harvested–– driving increased expansion
$\Longleftarrow$	Slow growth in galaxies that are colonized due to speed limitations, making centrality impossible.

Current values

International Energy Agency World Energy Outlook past and projected values for planetary power production yield these corresponding Kardashev scale estimates:

Year	Energy production				Fractional Kardashev scale equivalent
	exajoules/year	terawatts	Quads/year	mtoes/year
1900	21	.67	20	500	0.58
1970	190	6.0	180	4500	0.67
1973	260	8.2	240	6200	0.69
1985	290	9.2	270	6900	0.69
1989	320	10	300	7600	0.70
1993	340	11	320	8100	0.70
1995	360	12	340	8700	0.70
2000	420	13	400	10000	0.71
2001	420	13	400	10000	0.71
2002	430	14	410	10400	0.71
2004	440	14	420	10600	0.71
2010	510	16	480	12100	0.72
2030	680	22	650	16300	0.73

Literature describing different Kardashev Types

These categorizations are not firm, and are neither complete nor absolute. Most science fiction space opera writers do not specifically write their works with Kardashev classification in mind. Isaac Asimov's short story The Last Question covers many of the same themes as Kardashev's papers, in its descriptions of the future use of energy and entropy by human civilization; however it does not mention the scale, as it was written in 1956.

• Type I
  • The Mars trilogy, by Kim Stanley Robinson
  • Gaia, from Isaac Asimov's Foundation Series.
  • The United Nations Space Command of the video game series Halo

• Type II
  • Ringworld, by Larry Niven
  • Accelerando, by Charles Stross (featuring Matrioshka Brains)
  • BLAME!, a manga by Tsutomu Nihei
  • The United Federation of Planets of Star Trek
  • The Covenant of the video game series Halo
  • The People of the Worldsphere of Doctor Who first seen in The Also People.
  • The Galactic Patrol in the Lensman series by E. E. Smith occupies multiple galaxies, yet only uses a fraction of the energy within those galaxies - unless mental energy is taken into account. The ultimate combatants in those series, the Arisians and the Eddorians, are type IV.
  • The Foundation series by Isaac Asimov. The Galactic Empire has colonized most habitable planets but still uses primarily geothermal and nuclear power (including fusion) technology for power on each planet.

• Type III
  • The Galactic Republic of Star Wars by George Lucas is a galaxy-spanning society. It has constructed planet-destroying space platforms which expend energy consistent with a Type III civilization.
  • The Borg Collective of Star Trek
  • The Star Maker by Olaf Stapledon. The stellar energy output of the whole galaxy is utilized by the Galactic Community of Worlds.
  • The Culture series, by Iain M. Banks
  • Manifold: Time, by Stephen Baxter - in the distant future, descendents of humanity maintain vast Dyson nets around the supermassive black hole remnants of galaxies until they evaporate via Hawking radiation, accessing the energy equivalent of multiple galaxies
  • The Skylark of Space series by E. E. Smith, where the characters access and manipulate the energy of multiple galaxies through their force-beam technology.

• Type IV and above
  • The Xeelee of the Xeelee Sequence, by Stephen Baxter
  • The Time Lords of Doctor Who - in the story The Gallifrey Chronicles the Time Lord Marnal claims "The Time Lords were the Type 4 civilization. We had no equals. We controlled the fundamental forces of the entire universe. Nothing could communicate with us on our level. Most races pray to lesser beings than the Time Lords"
  • By implication, the Daleks of Doctor Who reached the Type IV level by the Time War.
  • The Dancers at the End of Time by Michael Moorcock - a past civilization is described which consumed all the energy in all the stars in the universe (saving Earth's own sun) in order to fuel an existence where the inheritors of the Earth lived as nigh-omnipotent gods.
  • The Q Continuum of Star Trek could be considered even greater than stage IV because they are described as omnipotent and so would have infinite energy rather than the limiting factor of all the power in the universe

Connections with sociology and anthropology

Kardashev's theory can be viewed as the expansion of some social theories, especially from social evolutionism. It is close to the theory of Leslie White, author of The Evolution of Culture: The Development of Civilization to the Fall of Rome (1959). White attempted to create a theory explaining the entire history of humanity. The most important factor in his theory is technology: Social systems are determined by technological systems, wrote White in his book, echoing the earlier theory of Lewis Henry Morgan. As measure of society advancement he proposed the measure energy consumption of a given society (thus his theory is known as energy theory of cultural evolution). He differentiates between five stages of human development. In the first stage, people use energy of their own muscles. In the second stage, they use energy of domesticated animals. In the third stage, they use the energy of plants (which White refers to as agricultural revolution). In the fourth stage, they learn to use the energy of natural resources - such as coal, oil and gas. Finally, in the fifth stage, they harness nuclear energy. White introduced a formula P=E×T, where P measures the advancement of the culture, E is a measure of energy consumed, and T is the measure of efficiency of technical factors utilizing the energy.

Criticism

Energy Consumption from 1989 to 1999

It has been argued that, because we cannot understand advanced civilizations, we cannot predict their behavior; thus, Kardashev's visualization may not reflect what will actually occur for an advanced civilization. This central argument is found within the book Evolving the Alien: The Science of Extraterrestrial Life.

See also

• Alternative biochemistry
• Amara's law
• Anthropic principle
• Clarke's three laws
• Drake equation
• Fermi paradox
• History of science and technology
• Rare Earth hypothesis
• Simulated reality
• Technological singularity
• Energy: world resources and consumption

References

• Rusinek, Marvin (1998). "Energy Consumption of Europe". The Physics Factbook.
• Wind Powering America
• Clean Energy for Planetary Survival: International Development Research Centre
• LBL Scientists Research Global Warming
• E³ Handbook
• Clarke H2 energy systems
• Holdren, John P. (2003). "Environmental Change and the Human Condition" (PDF). Bulletin Fall. pp. 24–31. Retrieved 2006-08-10. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
• Dordrecht, D. (1985). "Exponential Expansion: Galactic Destiny or Technological Hubris?". In B. R. Finney, M. D. Papagiannis (ed.). The Search for Extraterrestrial Life: Recent Developments. Reidel Publ. Co. pp. 465–463.
• "Key World Energy Statistics" (PDF). International Energy Agency. 2004. Retrieved 2006-08-10.
• Shkadov Thruster
• Korotayev A., Malkov A., Khaltourina D. Introduction to Social Macrodynamics: Compact Macromodels of the World System Growth. Moscow: URSS, 2006. ISBN 5-484-00414-4 [1].

External links

• Kardashev civilizations
• Detectability of Extraterrestrial Technological Activities
• Flash Animation on Civilizations
• After Kardashev: Farewell to Super Civilizations