Energy Renewable and Nonrenewable Resources Natural Resources All

Energy Renewable and Nonrenewable Resources

Natural Resources All organisms on Earth, including humans, use energy derived from resources provided by the environment. Earth supplies a variety of natural resources that living things use, change, and reuse. Some of these resources can be replaced and/or reused in nature; these are renewable resources. Natural resources that cannot be replaced in nature are nonrenewable

Renewable Resources Renewable resources are replaced through natural processes at a rate that is equal to or greater than the rate at which they are being used. Renewable resources are used to produce electricity and fuel. Examples include: solar, water, wind, biomass, geothermal, crops, land, and many more.

Solar energy is energy from the sun. Solar cells are called photovoltaic or photoelectric cells. They convert light directly into electricity. Solar heating is worthwhile in places like California and Australia, where you get lots of sunshine.

Water We can obtain energy from moving water. This is called hydroelectric energy. Water is also constantly renewed/replenished by the water cycle making it a renewable resource. A dam is built to trap water, usually in a valley where there is an existing lake. Water is allowed to flow through tunnels in the dam, to turn turbines and thus drive generators. Hydro-electricity provides 20% of the world’s power

Wind The Sun heats our atmosphere unevenly, so some patches become warmer than others. These warm patches of air rise, other air blows in to replace them - and we feel a wind blowing. We can use wind energy to produce electricity. Wind energy is renewable, but it depends on steady, strong winds blowing most of the time and that only occurs in a few places. Wind farms also take up a great deal of land the turning blades can be noisy.

Biomass is organic (living) matter that contains stored energy from sunlight and can be burned as fuel. This includes things like plant and animal waste, wood, crops, and other plant/animal materials.

Geothermal Recall that the inner core of the Earth is very hot, between 9, 00 and 13, 000 degrees. Geothermal energy is heat energy that originates from within the Earth. This energy can be used to generate electricity. Hot rocks underground heat water to produce steam. We drill holes down to the hot region, steam comes up, is purified and used to drive turbines, which drive electric generators.

Hydrogen gas can be used as a fuel. Most of the hydrogen on earth is combined with oxygen and it requires more energy to separate the hydrogen from the oxygen than burning the hydrogen would produce. Scientists are trying to find was to make using hydrogen for fuel more suitable in the future.

Nonrenewable Resources Nonrenewable resources are resources that are being extracted and used at a much faster rate than the rate at which they were formed. These resources usually take millions of years to form. Examples include: Coal, natural gas, oil, uranium, minerals and rocks. Coal, natural gas, and oil are also called fossil fuels.

How is coal made?

Coal is a fossil fuel formed underground from buried and decayed plant material. Heat and pressure determine the type of coal formed. The world’s largest coal deposits are in the United States, Russia, and China.

How are natural gas and oil made?

Natural gas and Oil Most oil and natural gas is trapped under ground in porous rocks. Heat and pressure can push the oil and gas upward until they reach a layer of nonporous rock where they collect. We drill down into the nonporous rock where the oil and gas collect to bring them to the surface.