173TW is the amount of solar energy that reaches Earth. More than 10,000x what we currently use. Sure, we'll probably never (there's that word again!) use all of it, but it gives a sense of scale. And who knows, perhaps we'll use more since there's always the other side of the sun. Apparently, a full dyson sphere around the sun would theoretically give us 400 septillion (10^24) watts.