It will then collect energy at a rate of one Earthpower, in other words one starship-load per month. The essential point of this discussion is that an interplanetary-level civilisation will have access to the full power output of its home star. One last point. We do not of course know whether a space-based interplanetary civilisation will ever become a reality. Maybe there is some fatal flaw in human group psychology or biology which will forever restrict us to this one planet.
Nobody can predict the future.
But what we do know is that the only way to find out is to get out there and try to make it work. Return to contents list. The definition of an Earthpower is not so straightforward. Internal radioactive decay heats the Earth's interior and drives geological processes such as volcanoes and continental drift, before again eventually escaping to space as waste heat. The purpose of the Absorbed Earthpower will be to make comparisons between the energy input by the Sun and that input by human industrial activities on the Earth.