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
Trailing trend of world primary energy — added in the latest 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 → 2100.
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
STOCK · —FLOW · —TREND · —SOURCES · Smil (2017); Energy Institute Statistical Review; Our World in Data (CC BY 4.0)
FORMULA · K = (log₁₀ P − 6) / 10 · Sagan (1973)TYPE I · PI = 10¹⁶ W · Constant-rate ETA = log(PI/P)/log(1+g)GROWTH · g = least-squares fit of ln(energy) over the trailing windowUPDATED · —