In 1800, humanity generated 0.3 terrawatts (TW).

Humankind generates 20 TW today. That’s a massive jump.

And everyone wants more power. It determines what society can do.

But 20 TW is a pittance in the grand scheme of the vast universe. Imagine if we were generating 100 TW or 1,000 TW.

That’s why we talk about stuff like the Kardashev Scale — type 1, 2, 3 civilization type stuff.

Electricity is not currently cheap. 20 TW is a pittance. One day humanity will reach a point where we’re generating 500 TW of power and questions of being able to smelt aluminum or make drinking water from brine seem almost like a joke. We will have flying construction drones 24/7 at that scale of energy production. At that point, we’ll be asking questions like “when will we have enough energy to terraform a planet?”

Of course, there are side effects of greater power generation such as global warming… but once again, it’s a scale thing. The universe is vast.

Slowly, we are getting there.