- **Epistemic status:** #budding The Karsashev scale is a way of classifying alien civilizations by measuring their energy consumption for the purpose of transmitting information. The idea was published in 1964 in the article _transmission of information by Extra-terrestial Civilizations_ by astrophysicist Nikolai S. Kardashev. The following are the types of civilizations that Kardashev proposed in their article. - Type I: Extract and utilize the power of their planet such as coal, nuclear, solar, etc. with an energy consumption at ≈4×1019 erg/sec" (4×1012 watts). - Type II: Extract and utilize the power of their star, possibly by using a Dyson Sphere with an energy consumption at ≈4×1033 erg/sec. - Type III: Extract and utilize the power of their galaxy, with an energy consumption at ≈4×1044 erg/sec. Humanity, it is not yet a full Type I Civilization. The physicist and futurist Michio Kaku suggested that if humans increase their energy consumption by 3% each year, they would attain Type I status in 100-200 years, Type II status in a few thousand years, Type III status in 100,000 to a million years. Many extensions/modifications have been proposed to the Kardashev Scale, such as: - Type IV: Extract and utilize the power of the entire universe. - Type V: Extract and utilize the power of a collection of universes. These extensions are not taken into account, since it would be difficult to assert when a civilization gets close to this stage and surpasses the limits of our understanding of the cosmos. --- ## References - “Kardashev Scale - Wikipedia.” Accessed August 26, 2022. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kardashev_scale>. - “Sources Kardashev Scale.” Accessed August 26, 2022. <https://sites.google.com/view/sourceskardashevscale/>. - _What Do Alien Civilizations Look Like? The Kardashev Scale_, 2020. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rhFK5_Nx9xY>.