The Kardeshev scale measures the advancement of civilization based on energy consumption. It’s a useful way for thinking about where extraterrestrials might be but also where we are in the progress of human civilization.
There are three levels outlined in the original paper but the scale was extended up to six by others.
- Able to harness all the energy that reaches it’s home planet (nuclear energy i.e. fusion not fission, would be needed to reach this)
- Able to harness the energy radiated by it’s own star (i.e. a Dyson sphere)
- Able to harness the energy of it’s own galaxy, drawing energy from multiple stars
See also:
- Energy as an approximation for technology seems reasonable given energy consumption grows in lockstep with economic growth
- David Deutch would argue that knowledge is the thing to measure—matter, energy, and evidence are all that’s needed for knowledge creation
- Abundance of energy also provides the potential for civilization destroying catastrophes: Fermi paradox and pessimism of energy economics