Civilizations of this type consume all the energy of their native stars, but we are still far from it.
According to ScienceAlert, scientists from the California Institute of Technology, in their new scientific study, tried to find out whether our civilization could achieve such a technological advance that it would correspond to a type I civilization on the Kardashev scale.
There are several ways to measure the progress of human civilization. One way is how much energy we can consume. If energy consumption is considered one of our most useful skills, we can assume that other civilizations in the universe have similar skills. This means that a civilization’s level of energy consumption is a measure of that civilization’s technological progress. This is the main meaning of the Kardashev scale.
Kardashev scale
This scale was created by Soviet astrophysicist Nikolai Kardashev in 1964. He divided civilizations into three types:
- A Type I civilization can use energy corresponding to the amount of energy from the planet reaching it from its parent star;
- A Type II civilization can use all the energy of its star;
- A Type III civilization has reached a level that will use all the energy of its galaxy.
How can humanity reach the level of Type I civilization?
“We’re not even a Type I civilization, even though humans use huge amounts of energy,” says Jonathan Jiang of the California Institute of Technology.
About 10 to the 16th power of solar energy hits the Earth, but our civilization uses only 10 to the 13th power of a watt. Therefore, scientists asked themselves the question: Can we even reach the level of type I civilization on the Kardashev scale?
“On the one hand, it is possible to reach the required level of energy consumption by using the priority production of this energy on Earth. After all, it is theoretically impossible to capture all the sunlight and leave the Earth habitable,” says Jiang. .
Scientists in the study examined 3 main energy sources:
- energy from fossil fuels;
- energy from nuclear power plants;
- renewable energy sources.
“But if you burn all the fossil fuels, the climate will change so much that humanity will perish. Accordingly, it’s hard to become a Type I civilization if you’re not there,” Jiang says.
When can we become a Type I civilization?
However, scientists argue that it is possible to reach Type I civilization level with the correct use of energy resources on Earth to prevent climate change. True, this will happen no earlier than 2371.
We remind you that NASA has prepared a new message for aliens that will describe our civilization in detail. Scientists want an answer even from representatives of extraterrestrial civilizations, if any.
Moreover Focus He wrote that scientists are questioning the well-known hypothesis about the origin of human civilization. Instead, they proposed a new theory.
Source: Riafan
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