Also known as a Type 1 civilization · K1
A Type I civilization — also called a planetary civilization — has learned to capture and channel the entire energy budget that reaches its home planet. On the Kardashev scale this corresponds to roughly 10¹⁶ watts of usable power, about ten thousand times more than humanity commands today.
The Kardashev scale, proposed by Soviet astronomer Nikolai Kardashev in 1964, ranks civilizations by the amount of energy they can harness. A Type I civilization sits at the first rung: it controls every joule that its planet receives from its star, plus the energy stored in its winds, oceans, tectonics and weather systems.
Reaching Type I means closing the gap between the sunlight a planet intercepts and the energy a species actually uses. For Earth, the Sun delivers about 1.7 × 10¹⁷ watts to the upper atmosphere; a true Type I civilization would tap a large fraction of that through planet-spanning solar capture, fusion, advanced geothermal and global wind and tidal networks.
A planetary civilization is typically imagined as one that has also mastered its environment — directing weather, managing the climate deliberately, and running closed material loops where almost nothing is wasted. Energy abundance, not energy scarcity, becomes the default condition of the species.
A Type I (planetary) civilization on the Kardashev scale can harness all of the energy that reaches its home planet from its star — on the order of 10¹⁶ watts. It effectively controls the energy of an entire world.
Roughly 10¹⁶ watts, or about 1.7 × 10¹⁶ W for an Earth-like planet. That is roughly ten thousand times more power than humanity currently generates.
No. Humanity sits at about K = 0.73 on the Kardashev scale, generating roughly 18 terawatts. We are still well below the Type I threshold of K = 1.0.
Estimates vary, but physicists such as Carl Sagan and Michio Kaku have suggested humanity could reach Type I within roughly 100 to 200 years if energy use keeps growing.
