AIMING FOR THE PLANETARY CIVILIZATION

The level of technological development of any civilization can be gaged in large part by the amount of energy they produce for their use, but also encompasses that civilization’s stewardship of their home world. Following the Kardashev definition, a Type I civilization is able to store and use all the energy available on its planet. In this study, we develop a model based on Carl Sagan’s K formula and use this model to analyze the consumption and energy supply of the three most important energy sources: fossil fuels (e.g., coal, oil, natural gas, crude, NGL and feedstocks), nuclear energy and renewable energy. We also consider environmental limitations suggested by United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the International Energy Agency, and those specific to our calculations to predict when humanity will reach the level of a Kardashev scale Type I civilization.

2022

Energy has been propelling the development of human civilization for millennia, and technologies acquiring energy beyond human and animal power have been continuously advanced and transformed. In 1964, the Kardashev Scale was proposed to quantify the relationship between energy consumption and the development of civilizations. Human civilization presently stands at Type 0.7276 on this scale. Projecting the future energy consumption, estimating the change of its constituting structure, and evaluating the influence of possible technological revolutions are critical in the context of civilization development. In this study, we use two machine learning models, random forest (RF) and autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA), to simulate and predict energy consumption on a global scale. We further project the position of human civilization on the Kardashev Scale in 2060. The result shows that the global energy consumption is expected to reach 928-940 EJ in 2060, with a total growth of over 50% in the coming 40 years, and our civilization is expected to achieve Type 0.7474 on the Kardashev Scale, still far away from a Type 1 civilization. Additionally, we discuss the potential energy segmentation change before 2060 and present the influence of the advent of nuclear fusion in this context.

Journal of Science & Technology, 2021

The Kardashev Scale is a method of measuring a civilization's level of technological advancement based on the amount of energy they are able to use.Kardashev's idea of classifying civilizations according to their ability to harness energy came up when he analysed how powerful an extra-terrestrial radio signal would have to be in order to be detected by conventional radio astronomical techniques. The numbers he came up with were quite high, and this furnished the basis of his tripartite division of civilizations into Type I, II, and III. Further scientists like Carl Sagan worked on finding out where exactly the earth stood in terms of usage of energy on the Kardashev Scale and came up with a formula for calculating the same. Physicist and futurist Michio Kaku suggested the number of years it would take the humans to attain Type I, II and III status if they consistently increased their energy consumption.Taking his study further, in this paper, based on time series algorithm, using such statistical tools as linear regression we try to calculate the year in which earth will attain Type I status. It was found that earth would reach Kardashev's Type 1 status in 327 years' time. Formulated around 50 years ago by the Russian radio astronomer Nikolai Kardashev his analysis of usage of energy by civilisations in the universe is still the gold standard. In this paper we discuss the Kardashev Scale, where our mother earth currently is on the Kardashev Scale, how it is progressing and when it will achieve the next level. Sightings of Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs), stories of aliens, extra-terrestrial life and communication with them have always fascinated scientists and common man alike. While the common man watched reels of films filled with the improbable, maybe even impossible accounts of humans becoming friends or bitter enemies with these aliens and poorly animated intergalactic wars, scientists silently went about understanding whether life was possible in other planets, how advanced were life in other planets and whether inter galactic travel and communication were possible. 1.1 Kardashev Scale One such person was Nikolai Kardashev. The Kardashev Scale is a method of measuring a civilization's level of technological advancement based on the amount of energy they are able to use.He was one among the pioneers of the Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI) and his idea of classifying civilizations according to their ability to harness energy was directly related to his experience in radio telescopy. While Kardashev 1 (1964) was conducting his studies he came across the question of how powerful an extra-terrestrial radio signal would have to be in order to be detected, by conventional radio astronomical techniques. The numbers he came up with were quite high, and this formed the basis of his division of civilizations into Type I, Type II, and Type III.

2006

Kardashev's typology is based on a belief that we can categorize super civilizations by their energy consumption. But on the one hand we can imagine an advanced civilization which conquers either its own solar system or its galaxy without reaching the second or third level of the Kardashev Scale. On the other hand it will be impossible to build a civilization which can harness the energy of an entire galaxy, unless we discover new physical laws. So it is reasonable to create a new typology which is based on the possible spatial extents of an advanced civilization.

Current Trends in Information Technology , 2020

In 1964, Nikolai Kardashev proposed the Kardashev scale, a system for measuring the extent of technological advancement of a civilization based on the magnitude of energy consumption. According to Carl Sagan, the American astrophysicist, we are approaching an inevitable type-1 Kardashev civilized existence. An artificial superintelligence superior to that of humans can concur with a higher-hierarchy Kardashev civilization. Futuristic technological innovations mandate an acceleration in artificial intelligence and superintelligence. This scenario can be pessimistic, as digital superintelligence can render human-based activities obsolete. However, integrating artificial intelligence with humans, via brain-computer interface technologies, can be protective. Nonetheless, legislation in connection with information technologies is essential to regulate upcoming digital knowledge and superintelligence.

The study of civilization has been a primarily historical enterprise, and secondarily a sociological enterprise. This historical and sociological approach to the study of civilization has not been sufficient for understanding civilization as a distinctive phenomenon. Civilization needs to be studied as a sui generis object of scientific knowledge. Ten imperatives for approaching civilization in this way are outlined, which touch upon scientificity, interdisciplinarity, the definition of civilization, temporality, concepts specific to civilization, thought experiments, theoretical models, formality, regulative principles, and scholarly institutions. If civilization has a future, i.e., if it does not succumb to existential risk, civilization then has before it an expansive future with few intrinsic limits. Our knowledge of cosmology and of the history of the universe points to plentiful energy and material resources that could be exploited by any civilization possessing a sufficiently advanced technology, and these cosmological conditions should prevail for several billion years. Restricting ourselves to obvious extrapolations of civilization as we know it, supervening upon life as we know it, civilization appears to become more robust as it matures, experiencing fewer lapses of shorter duration and less loss of heritage, so that once a civilization has established multiple independent centers beyond its homeworld, there is no reason to limit its extent in space and time except for the limits of energy and material resources exploitable by such a civilization. The path from civilization to supercivilization 1 is not inevitable, but also not impossible. When the first starship departs from our solar system with human beings bound for another star, we will begin the process of the expansion of terrestrial civilization to other planetary systems. An interstellar civilization will come into being at this time. Before this happens, civilization will have expanded beyond Earth, making the entirety of the solar system its home, using the plentiful energy and material resources nearby Earth. Already at this stage of development, civilization will have established multiple independent centers of spacefaring civilization, though still clustered closely around the sun like moths fluttering around a candle flame. The interstellar expansion that would follow upon this buildout of a spacefaring civilization within our solar system would extend these multiple independent centers of civilization to multiple stars and their planetary systems,

Journal of the British Interplanetary Society

Information Technology and Societal Development

The purpose of this study is to develop a comprehensive model of generic civilizations and world civilization, applying the cybernetic technique of analysis and synthesis. Identifying the role of information-communication processes is particularly important for this quest, because these processes strongly influence the progress of civilization at the beginning of the 21st century. Three models, developed by Braudel (1993), Toynbee (1957), and Koneczny (1962), serve as both justification for this type of study and the foundations for a new model. The spectacular progress in technology and living standards achieved by mankind at the beginning of the third millennium prompts research on the grand view of the human condition. Numerous questions need to be answered: 1. What is a civilization? 2. What types of civilizations can be recognized at the beginning of the third millennium? 3. What are the relationships between any particular civilization and the world civilization? 4. What is th...

The Frontiers Collection, 2012

Nature's myriad complex systems-whether physical, biological or cultural-are mere islands of organization within increasingly disordered seas of surrounding chaos. Energy is a principal driver of the rising complexity of all such systems within the expanding, ever-changing Universe; indeed energy is as central to life, society, and machines as it is to stars and galaxies. Energy flow concentrationin contrast to information content and negentropy production-is a useful quantitative metric to gauge relative degree of complexity among widely diverse systems in the one and only Universe known. In particular, energy rate densities for human brains, society collectively, and our technical devices have now become numerically comparable as the most complex systems on Earth. Accelerating change is supported by a wealth of data, yet the approaching technological singularity of 21st century cultural evolution is neither more nor less significant than many other earlier singularities as physical and biological evolution proceeded along an undirectional and unpredictable path of more inclusive cosmic evolution, from big bang to humankind. Evolution, broadly construed, has become a powerful unifying concept in all of science, providing a comprehensive worldview for the new millennium-yet there is no reason to claim that the next evolutionary leap forward beyond sentient beings and their amazing gadgets will be any more important than the past emergence of increasingly intricate complex systems. Nor is new science (beyond non-equilibrium thermodynamics) necessarily needed to describe cosmic evolution's interdisciplinary milestones at a deep and empirical level. Humans, our tools, and their impending messy interaction possibly mask a Platonic simplicity that undergirds the emergence and growth of complexity among the many varied systems in the material Universe, including galaxies, stars, planets, life, society, and machines.

Social Science Research Network, 2013

Human societies are evolving as energy transduction systems and the biophysical flow of energy in a socioeconomic system quantizes the flow of time and drives temporal acceleration. The decisive role of money in a monetary production economy is highlighted as temporal access to energy. The greater the natural energy input for productive output, the higher the economic wave frequency and the shorter the wave length. A singularization of human history, that is a replacement of long wave patterns, in the nearer future depends on the technical achievement of a relatively constant energy input. According to the basic formulae of the Snooks-Panov curve, a significant quantum change of the temporal flow will take place in the next decade; it is an open mathematical guess and an ongoing human intelligence test, if this temporal turning point is of discrete or continuous nature.