Talk:Kardashev scale

cut out science fiction examples?

fancruft and unneeded, IMO, even though I just edited it. --66.92.88.148 (talk) 21:23, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Extensions to the original scale in science-fiction: Spaning vs Energy Production

Just because a civilization spans an entire galaxy, it does not necessarily mean that it is a type III civilization. Kardashev's scale primarily deals with energy output not territorial space. The same would be true of a type IV civilization. Just because the civilization can travel to other galaxies it does not mean that its energy output is equal to all those galaxies. If this is the case then the Ancients from StarGate would not qualify as a type IV civilization. Nothing i've seen suggests their total energy output to be anywhere near or above 4 × 10³⁷ W. The Galactic Empire from Foundation would also not be a type III civilization as they only harness power on the stellar level. The Transformers have solar harvesters that can convert one star at a time to energon but they do not generate anything near the total output of a galaxy. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 38.99.220.210 (talk) 21:20, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

Reading some of the science fiction examples of a giving type civilization, I agree with the above. a lot of the examples i think are placed in the wrong catagory being in a higher catagory than should be in. the Federation of star trek...should be a type 1 and the transformers a type 2. the ancients of stargate a type II almost a type III. whoever did the examples didn't exactly pay close attention to the definitions of each catagory.Gulielmi2002 (talk) 21:42, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

Numbers confusion

The "energy use" section states that Type 1 energy consumption is 10^17W, presumably the power of the sunlight hitting the surface (although this derivation is never mentioned). The "current status" section uses a formula that assumes Type 1 being 10^16W, presumably the power practically achievable by actually covering the Earth's surface with solar cells. The "methods to achieve Type 1" section doesn't say which benchmark is used.

On a different point, I'd like to say that it'd be nice if in the "current status" the K value was broken down by country. For example, America presently uses as much energy as it'd be able to generate by covering 2% of its land surface with solar cells. I think that's significant in this discussion, as it's eerily close to [Sagan's 10^16W defintion of] Type 1.

On a totally different point, the "methods to achieve Type 1" section should obviously mention fission. It's a technology that already works and could very possibly be scaled up to 10^16W. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.38.162.22 (talk) 03:17, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

I tried to add that information (that 1 km^3 of earth crust contains ~20 000 tonnes of thorium-232 on avarage, which is enought to produce over 10^21 Joules of energy in thermal nuclear reactor like Molten Salt Reactor) but is has been rejected due to lack of source. I was strange becouse tge section about using fusion power hasn't been rejected despite of lack of the source and despite of the miscalculations (5 kg of matter equals 4.5*10^17 Joules which is much more than 10^16 - 10^17 Joules per second needed for type I civilization, there should probably be 0.5 kg of matter, 100 kg of hydrogen and so on...)

 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.246.67.228 (talk) 12:12, 24 November 2009 (UTC) 

Isnt this mistaken?

"Anti-matter production is still beyond our civilization's ability to utilize as a power source..." (on how could a civ reach Type 2 section)

Can anti-mater be a power source? Using laws of conservation of energy, we would atleast get the same energy used to produce it by colliding it with matter, isnt that right?

--189.102.144.200 (talk) 20:14, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

Anti-matter can conceivably be used as a power source in the same way that solar power can. We harvest solar power but do not provide the input energy. Energy is still conserved, but we, the human users, are making a net gain. Similarly, we could scour the galaxy looking for already existing sources of antimatter, such as LMXBs, or else we could use some future technology to move objects into a LMXB configuration to act as power generators. So no, it is not a mistaken concept, just utterly beyond our current capabilities. SpinningSpark 21:45, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

I think the problem here is that the article uses the phrase, "produce or collect anti-matter", and that can leave a reasonable reader with the impression that you're somehow liberating more energy from antimatter than it took to make the anti-matter, which is, indeed, a violation of conservation of energy. The article would be better served by leaving out any talk of production of anti-matter and being explicit that it is talking about collecting naturally produced antimatter. (Of course it's true that antimatter could be used as an intermediary medium to store energy produced in some other way, but that's clearly beyond the scope of this article.) --Nick (talk) 18:07, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

Type I Solar

In the Type I section, under 'solar', it says "Currently, there is no known way for human civilization to successfully utilize the equivalent of the Earth's total absorbed solar energy without completely coating the surface with man-made structures". The Type I energy level is 174 PW, which is almost entirely covered by incoming solar energy. So, as I understand it, the statement is true by definition and therefore confusing because it has nothing to do with the current levels of technology. Reaching the Type I energy level would require harnessing all solar energy. And that even with a 100% efficiency. It would make more sense to state that that 174 PW is the incoming solar energy. Or do I misunderstand something? Amrad (talk) 12:43, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

You have to think outside the box on this one... who said anything about the solar panels being on earth soil as a requirement?--Sparkygravity (talk) 08:33, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

type IV civilisation

In fiction at least i can name two type IV civilisations. The first being The Combine from Half Life 2, who enslave alternate universes via quantum entanglement teleportation, and then tap their entire resources for their empire, the second being The Ancients from Stargate SG1 and Stargate Atlantis TV shows, who use 'Zero Point Modules' to tap vast amounts of energy from an alternate reality of subspace. Note that in the case of The Ancients, they artificially create a macro-universe from which to tap energy. They have in a previous show revealed that in the past they did attempt to tap energy directly from an alternate universe but this proved unsustainable and dangerous.

These fictional references and perhaps some others should possibly be included, thoughts?

Brain Digitalis ^{(Talk) (Edits)} 18:43, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

If you check the discussion page archives, many used to be included. This article has been through some major downsizing The snare (talk) 21:33, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

Information

Could somebody add to the part about available information by explaining how it is actually measured? The concept of information can be seen in many contexts, and especially when expressing it into bits, the way it is explained now is ambiguous at best and nonsensical at worst. For example, if to get to the Sagan figure, you count every bit of digitally stored information on somewhat-permanent record (hard disk, DVD, ...), you can get a certain figure, but even that can be considered meaningless since a lot of this information is duplicate. Also a lot - I'd daresay the vast majority - of information isn't even stored digitally, and is difficult (and using current technology probably impossible) to express in bits. Take, for example, the collective memory of all humans. Everyone has a huge load of memories. These are often quite detailed and more than sufficient for communication, but practically impossible to express in bits unless you found a way to individually map the state of each neuron related to memory storage.

Another example: analogue media. The information on vinyl records is also very difficult to express as bits. The information on a vinyl record is exact enough to be useful, but can only be counted accurately as bits by methods like using a predefined baud rate, or by mapping the entire surface of the record with an atomic force microscope, and so on. Practically every method will yield an immensely different bit count.

Based on the above, I believe an explanation of the method of counting these bits is in order, or that paragraph really doesn't make much sense. --Link ^(t•c•m) 10:39, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Yup. Plus the figure 10^13 bits is off by any measure. That's just 1 TB, which is a lot less than even a conservative estimate of the Library of Congress. Today, Seagate alone claims to be shipping 10^21 bits per year. 10^31 really doesn't seem so impressive. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.38.162.22 (talk) 03:28, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

why the obsession with power?

Another facet of civilisations is they learn to control their populations and reach equilibria. Even with the most ridiculously wasteful technology why should energy growth keep increasing what possible need would a fixed number of beings have for that much energy?129.67.178.90 (talk) 21:32, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

• I thought too, a civlisation doesn't require that much energy ( such as energy from their sun should be more than sufficient, energy from the galaxy is not required)..@Photnart. (talk) 09:48, 10 December 2009 (UTC).

Maybe it's the result of extrapolating the capitalist addiction to 3% y/y growth over millions of years? Yes, the topic is ripe for a post-Marxist critical analysis. AllGloryToTheHypnotoad (talk) 19:06, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

• • Because with effectively infinite living space (which even a Type I would have the space travel capability for) there is no longer any need or reason to limit population growth. More people = more minds = more ideas and advancements etc. ... if you have effectively unlimited resources you wouldn't want to control population, and if you have cheap space travel you do have effectively unlimited resources. A dyson swarm with 1 billion times earth land area could support quadrillions... a type III would be well beyond dyson swarms. A type III could easily support SEPTILLIONS of inhabitants (1 quadrillion/dyson swarm, 1 billion dyson swarms = 1 billion stars is a rather SMALL galaxy!) And that assumes a Type I/II/III would have population densities as low as ours, which is not necessarily likely. Artificial ecosystems (space colonies/dyson spheres) might devote far more of their biomass total to the intelligent population, and could have tremendously more efficient primary production (highly engineered plants, or artificial photosynthesis, or whatever).

Antimatter as powersource?

Sry, but this is non sense! Since there is no anti-matter on earth, in solsys or anywhere nearby (we would see the anihilation radiation that is released in the border beweeen matter and antimatter) So only way is to produce antimatter ourselves. but so produce antimatter, at least equal energy is needed as is released when fused again with regulat matter. (A simple fact of energy conservation.. if you take into account, that it's impossible to reach eta=1 (german: Wirkungsgrad, dont know the englich word) you'll always have to invest more energy than you get. you could maybee in a far distant future use it to store energy (if it'll ever be possible to generate energy from the anihilation radiation, with is rather difficult, because of the kind of the radiation (neutrinos)), but not as a power source. these are hard facts from physics, i'm sry... rafik (no account, student of physics) --84.72.190.240 (talk) 11:34, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Source of Energy

Wouldn't a civ which used say a generator on their single planet that produces as much energy as their surrounding galaxy NOT by definition be a Type III because even though it generates all the energy in the surrounding galaxy you are still NOT using all the energy available in the galaxy (ie- the surrounding galaxy itself) The snare (talk) 04:40, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

I'd agree, though the question is how anyone can generate a galaxy's worth of energy on one planet. They'd have to be doing something more efficient than the fusion reactions of billions of suns. AllGloryToTheHypnotoad (talk) 19:04, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

It's "energy EQUIVALENT to" a planet/star/galaxy. So if we did really major fusion power, or enormous space solar collectors, we could be type I without ACTUALLY tapping all the solar/wind/tide energy of Earth. (Probably the only way to practically do it in fact; you can't 100% cover the earth in solar panels!)

Incorrect, it's mastery of all the energy available to a planet/star/galaxy, according to the article. So a Kardashev 1 civilization on earth will be using all the solar and wind power available on the planet (yes, covering it with solar panels), plus everything else available. However, yes, as far as this article is telling us, the Kardashev scale says diddly-squat about non-renewable resources. You could stick the entire planet in a fusion reactor to boost us to Kardashev-2 temporarily, but then you'd be left with nothing but Uranium - which isn't very nutritious. AllGloryToTheHypnotoad (talk) 00:58, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Where does 10^16W come from?

Where does the 10^16W number come from, is there any information on why it was picked as basis for the calculations? (..some sort of estimate for how much of the 1.74^17W available on Earth might realistically be used, or a guess by Kardashev or Sagan for the average available on a planet with a civilization, or just an old incorrect estimate for Earth's energy budget?) It makes the article/concept a bit confusing, for example "we are using approximately 0.16% of the total available planetary energy budget" is incorrect as 15TW / 174PW surely means we are only using 0.0086% ? (we'd be somewhere around 0.59 on the scale instead of 0.72 if the formula used the true estimate for Earth instead of 10^16W). Not sure how to change the article without making it more confusing though, would adding another column in the year-table with the "% out of Earth's 1.74^17W" help? Tomtefarbror (talk) 20:20, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

The estimation was done by Kardashev himself, it pertains to all estimated fuel reserves at the time, in addition to speculative estimates of unknown reserves. I'm unsure about whether it pertained to geothermal energy or solar energy as I have not read the original research papers.--Sparkygravity (talk) 18:56, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

I saw copy of original Kardashev papers (but on the paper, not in electornic form, so cannot give source reference) and the 3 tresholds were 4*10^22, 4*10^33 and 4*10^44 ergs/s (which equals 4*10^15, 4*10^26 and 4*10^37 watts). So there is probably some mistake in the article.