Non-renewable resources

Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - Cite This Source

A non-renewable resource is a natural resource that cannot be re-made, re-grown or regenerated on a scale comparative to its consumption. It exists in a fixed amount that is being consumed or used up faster than it can be made by nature. Fossil fuels (such as coal, petroleum and natural gas) and nuclear power are non-renewable resources, as they do not naturally re-form at a rate that makes the way we use them sustainable and consumer materials to produce electricity. A renewable resource differs in that it may be used but not used up. This is as opposed to natural resources such as timber, which re-grows naturally and can, in theory, be harvested sustainably at a constant rate without depleting the existing resource pool and resources such as metals, which, although they are not replenished, are not destroyed when used and can be recycled.

A non-renewable resource is always drawn down with anabolic processes that use up energy.

Carbon-based non-renewables

Natural resources such as coal, oil, or natural gas, take millions of years to form naturally and cannot be replaced as fast as they are consumed. Eventually they will be used up. At present, the main energy sources used by humans are non-renewable; renewable resources, such as solar, tidal, wind, and geothermal are yet to be fully utilized. Fossil fuels like coal, oil, and gas generate a considerable amount of energy when they are burnt (the process of combustion). Non-renewable resources have a high carbon content because their origin lies in the photosynthetic activity of plants millions of years ago. The fuels release this carbon back into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide. The rate at which such fuels are being burnt is thus resulting in a rise in the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, a cause of the greenhouse effect. The sun can also be a nonrenewable resource in some ways.

Natural resources are replaced by natural processes given unreasonable amount of time. Soil, water, forests, plants, and animals are all renewable resources as long as they are properly conserved. Solar, wind, wave, and geothermal energies are based on renewable resources. However, non-renewable resources may take billions of years to form.

Renewable resources such as water, wind power, sun radiation, tidal etc are practically infinite - they cannot be depleted - unlike their non-renewable counterparts, which will have run out by 2200.

Economic models

Hotelling's rule is a 1931 economic model of non-renewable resource management by Harold Hotelling. It shows that efficient exploitation of a nonrenewable and nonaugmentable resource would, under otherwise stable economic conditions, lead to a depletion of the resource. The rule states that this would lead to a net price or "Hotelling rent" for it that rose annually at a rate equal to the rate of interest, reflecting the increasing scarcity of the resource.

The Hartwick Rule provides an important result about the sustainability of welfare in an economy that uses non-renewable resources.

See also

• Energy conservation
• Green design
• Hubbert's peak
• Liebig's law of the minimum
• Peak oil

References

• Non-Renewable Resources at NASA.gov
• Electricity from Non-Hydroelectric Renewable Energy Sources at EPA.gov
• Non-renewable energy resource at EPA.gov
• Environmental impacts of nuclear power at EPA.gov

Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia © 2001-2006 Wikipedia contributors (Disclaimer)
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.
Last updated on Thursday February 28, 2008 at 20:59:56 PST (GMT -0800)
View this article at Wikipedia.org - Edit this article at Wikipedia.org - Donate to the Wikimedia Foundation