Visualizing the growth of our civilization through energy — from coal and steam to a planet running on the full power its star delivers.
Where we are
0.000K value
0.000% of full Type I energy — TW avg. planetary power
1%
—
Type I
How fast we are moving
0.0%annual energy growth
10-yr trailing mean of global primary energy use +~3,400 TWh added last year
When we arrive
————projected Type I
— years at current growth
Constant-rate extrapolation; not a forecast
Sheet 02 · Energy Archive
Global primary energy, 1800 → today.
Log-scale capacity of human civilization, plotted from the steam age to the present. The dotted plane is a planetary engineering sheet — every decade of energy use sits on the same logarithmic skyline.
Y · log₁₀ watts (continuous)X · year, linear · 1800 ↦ 2026
SOURCE-A · Global primary energy, 1800–2024 (synthetic series, replaceable with OWID)SOURCE-B · New build additions (synthetic, replaceable with Ember / IEA)SOURCE-C · Forward pipeline (synthetic, replaceable with GEM / IEA Hub)
FORMULA · K = (log₁₀ P − 6) / 10 · Sagan (1973)TYPE I · PI = 10¹⁶ W · Constant-rate ETA = log(PI/P)/log(1+g)UPDATED · —