- #1
selfAdjoint
Staff Emeritus
Gold Member
Dearly Missed
- 6,894
- 11
It's fun to think about the far-out Type II and III civilizations, but how close are we now to Type I?
M. Kaku says the output of our star is about "a billion trillion trillion ergs per second". That is, if I have done the arithmetic correctly, 10^33 ergs/sec or, dividing by 10^7, 10^26 watts. Note that this is power, rate of producing or consuming energy that we are talking about. I propose to name this amount of power the Sol. Numbering your power flux in Sols would be a practice of a Type I civilization.
Currently we measure the power consumption on Earth in quads, quadrillions of BTUs per year. That's 10^15 BTU/yr = 3.169 X 10^10 watts. In 2000 the Earth used energy at the rate of 300 quads per year, or about 10^13 watts. Notice that this power, 10^13 watts as numerically the square root of 1 Sol = 10^26 watts. This says that on a harmonic progression scale, we are half way from 10^0 watts (idly scratching) to the mark of Type I, the Sol.
Go humans, go!
M. Kaku says the output of our star is about "a billion trillion trillion ergs per second". That is, if I have done the arithmetic correctly, 10^33 ergs/sec or, dividing by 10^7, 10^26 watts. Note that this is power, rate of producing or consuming energy that we are talking about. I propose to name this amount of power the Sol. Numbering your power flux in Sols would be a practice of a Type I civilization.
Currently we measure the power consumption on Earth in quads, quadrillions of BTUs per year. That's 10^15 BTU/yr = 3.169 X 10^10 watts. In 2000 the Earth used energy at the rate of 300 quads per year, or about 10^13 watts. Notice that this power, 10^13 watts as numerically the square root of 1 Sol = 10^26 watts. This says that on a harmonic progression scale, we are half way from 10^0 watts (idly scratching) to the mark of Type I, the Sol.
Go humans, go!