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Abusing the Kardashev Scale For Fun and Profit: Difference between revisions
Abusing the Kardashev Scale For Fun and Profit (view source)
Revision as of 18:32, 13 July 2018
, 5 years ago→Type 0: Less than Type I. Clear cases go here. If it looks like a large fraction of a planet's power, it's borderline.: Negative ratings on logarithmic scales are perfectly valid.
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== Type 0: Less than Type I. Clear cases go here. If it looks like a large fraction of a planet's power, it's borderline. ==
* The [[Real Life|human civilization on Earth]] is currently hovering around a 0.72, with a [[Power Levels|power level]] of about ''1.6 x 10<sup>13</sup> W'', the vast majority extracted from high-density chemically stored solar energy (fossil fuels), with some nuclear fission on the side and other direct and indirect solar energy harvesting methods contributing a small fraction.
* A very, very powerful car<ref>(rated at 1350 horsepower or so)</ref> could achieve about 1 MW at its peak, yielding a personal 0.00. As the scale is logarithmic, anything lower
* The Sandia National Lab in the U.S spikes to 0.85 for about 95 nanoseconds on the scale (3.5 x 10<sup>14</sup> W) each time it activates the Z-Machine, a thermonuclear bomb simulator.<ref>(Each activation uses a bit more than 33 megajoules in 95 nanoseconds, which works out to 350 terawatts.)</ref> Said lab intends to eventually increase the power of the machine to 1 x 10<sup>15</sup>W for 100 nanosecond pulses to operate as an experimental pulsed power fusion reactor (1 petawatt being the input for one very short Z-pinch pulse - not the output) - hitting a rating of 0.9 on the scale.
* The National Ignition Facility at the U.S Lawrence-Livermore National Lab is another pulsed inertial fusion experiment, with its massive laser system capable generating nanosecond-scale flashes of 5 x 10<sup>14</sup> W on the fusion target, making a spike up to about 0.87 for a very, very short time.
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* The civilization in ''EYES of Mars'' appears to have tried to go for Type 1, and destroyed their primary planet in the process. This also made their secondary planet uninhabitable, except for a small biosphere. They eventually migrated to a third planet.
* Earth in ''[[Power Rangers]]'' is probably here. While it does have some nifty technology, it is in the hands of the government or can only be afforded by the very wealthy, and overall development seems to take up a pretty small fraction of the planet's energy budget. Other civilizations might be a bit higher.
== Borderline Type I: Power use roughly equivalent to a terrestrial planet's insolation. 1E16W ==
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