We All Need Resources

You can renew your lease when it runs out at the end of the year. You can renew your driver's license
and license plate on your birthday. You can also renew a library book when your allotted time with it has
expired. All sorts of things get renewed in our everyday lives when they 'run out' or expire. These are
easy to renew because you don't have to create a new one, you just renew the ability to use whatever it
is you are using.

You can apply this same principle to natural resources. We use all kinds of natural resources: minerals,
wood, coal, natural gas, wind, water, plants, animals and many more. Some of these are renewable and
some are non-renewable. The difference is that some renew at faster rates than others, making them
more sustainable than those that do not renew very fast.

Renewable Resources

Renewable resources are resources that are replenished by the environment over relatively short
periods of time. This type of resource is much more desirable to use because often a resource renews so
fast that it will have regenerated by the time you've used it up.

Think of this like the ice cube maker in your refrigerator. As you take some ice out, more ice gets made.
If you take a lot of ice out, it takes a little more time to refill the bin but not a very long time at all. Even
if you completely emptied the entire ice cube bin, it would probably only take a few hours to 'renew'
and refill that ice bin for you. Renewable resources in the natural environment work the same way.

Solar energy is one such resource because the sun shines all the time. Imagine trying to harness all of
the sun's energy before it ran out! Wind energy is another renewable resource. You can't stop the wind
from blowing any more than you can stop the sun from shining, which makes it easy to 'renew.'

Any plants that are grown for use in food and manufactured products are also renewable resources.
Trees used for timber, cotton used for clothes, and food crops, such as corn and wheat, can all be
replanted and regrown after the harvest is collected.

Animals are also considered a renewable resource because, like plants, you can breed them to make
more. Livestock, like cows, pigs and chickens, all fall into this category. Fish are also considered
renewable, but this one is a bit trickier because even though some fish are actually farmed for
production, much of what we eat comes from wild stocks in lakes and oceans. These wild populations
are in a delicate balance, and if that balance is upset by overfishing, that population may die out.

Water is also sometimes considered a renewable resource. You can't really 'use up' water, but you also
can't make more of it. There is a limited supply of water on Earth, and it cycles through the planet in
various forms - as a liquid (our oceans), a solid (our polar ice caps and glaciers) and a gas (as clouds and
water vapor).
Liquid water can be used to generate hydroelectric power, which we get from water flowing through
dams. This is considered a renewable resource because we don't actually take the water out of the
system to get electricity. Like sunshine and wind, we simply sit back and let the resource do all the work!

Geothermal energy is a renewable resource that provides heat from the earth - 'geo' means 'earth' and
'thermal' means 'heat.' You know all of those volcanoes on Earth that spew hot lava when they erupt?
That lava has got to come from somewhere, right? It's actually sitting underneath the earth's surface as
incredibly hot rock and magma.

We find the most heat in places like plate boundaries because these are like large cracks under Earth's
surface where the heat can escape as well as places on Earth where the crust is relatively thin. Old
Faithful and other natural springs and geysers are the result of geothermal energy and that water can be
hotter than 430°F!

Biofuels are renewable resources that are fuels made from living organisms - literally biological fuels.
Ethanol is a biofuel because it's derived from corn. Biodiesel is vehicle fuel made from vegetable oil, and
I bet you didn't know that people can actually run their cars on used oil from restaurants! Firewood,
animal dung and peat burned for heat and cooking purposes are also biofuels because they come from
living (or once-living) organisms.

Non-Renewable Resources

In contrast to renewable resources, non-renewable resources are resources that are not easily
replenished by the environment. Let's think about this in terms of that ice cube maker again. Imagine
that this time you don't have an automatic ice maker at home, you have to wait for someone to bring it
to you, and they only do this once a month.

If you used up all your ice quickly, it wouldn't regenerate in your refrigerator, and you would be out of
ice until the next delivery comes. The same thing happens with non-renewable resources on Earth,
except the wait time is much longer than a month - usually more like thousands or millions of years!

The fuels we use to heat our homes and drive our cars are non-renewable resources because there is
just no way that the earth can regenerate them in a usable time frame. Minerals are also considered
non-renewable resources because, not only do they take millions of years of heat and pressure to form
deep underground, but they're also found in a very limited quantity on Earth. Not all non-renewable
resources are usable only once, though.
Nonrenewable and renewable energy sources

Energy sources are classified as nonrenewable because they do not form or replenish in a short period
of time. Renewable energy sources such as solar and wind replenish naturally in a short period of time.

The four major nonrenewable energy sources are:

- Crude oil

Crude oil is a mixture of hydrocarbons that formed from plants and animals that lived millions of years
ago. Crude oil is a fossil fuel, and it exists in liquid form in underground pools or reservoirs, in tiny spaces
within sedimentary rocks, and near the surface in tar (or oil) sands. Petroleum products are fuels made
from crude oil and other hydrocarbons contained in natural gas. Petroleum products can also be made
from coal, natural gas, and biomass.
Products made from crude oil

After crude oil is removed from the ground, it is sent to a refinery where different parts of the crude oil
are separated into useable petroleum products. These petroleum products include gasoline, distillates
such as diesel fuel and heating oil, jet fuel, petrochemical feedstocks, waxes, lubricating oils, and
asphalt.

A U.S 42-gallon barrel of crude oil yields about 45 gallons of petroleum products in U.S. refineries
because of refinery processing gain. This increase in volume is similar to what happens to popcorn when
it is popped.

- Natural gas

Natural gas occurs deep beneath the earth's surface. Natural gas consists mainly of methane, a
compound with one carbon atom and four hydrogen atoms. Natural gas also contains small amounts
of hydrocarbon gas liquids and nonhydrocarbon gases. We use natural gas as a fuel and to make
materials and chemicals.

How did natural gas form?

Millions of years ago, the remains of plants and animals (diatoms) decayed and built up in thick layers,
sometimes mixed with sand and silt. Over time, these layers were buried under sand, silt, and rock.
Pressure and heat changed some of this organic material into coal, some into oil (petroleum), and some
into natural gas. In some places, the natural gas moved into large cracks and spaces between layers of
overlying rock. In other places, natural gas occurs in the tiny pores (spaces) within some formations of
shale, sandstone, and other types of sedimentary rock where it is referred to as shale gas or tight gas.
Natural gas also occurs in coal deposits and is called coal bed methane.
- Coal

Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock with a high amount of carbon and
hydrocarbons. Coal is classified as a nonrenewable energy source because it takes millions of years to
form. Coal contains the energy stored by plants that lived hundreds of millions of years ago in swampy
forests.

The plants were covered by layers of dirt and rock over millions of years. The resulting pressure and heat
turned the plants into the substance we call coal.

Types of coal
Coal is classified into four main types, or ranks: anthracite, bituminous, subbituminous, and lignite. The
ranking depends on the types and amounts of carbon the coal contains and on the amount of heat energy
the coal can produce. The rank of a coal deposit is determined by the amount of pressure and heat that
acted on the plants over time.
- Uranium (nuclear energy)

Nuclear energy is energy in the core of an atom

Atoms are the tiny particles in the molecules that make up gases, liquids, and solids. Atoms themselves
are made up of three particles called protons, neutrons, and electrons. An atom has a nucleus (or core)
containing protons and neutrons, which is surrounded by electrons. Protons carry a positive electrical
charge and electrons carry a negative electrical charge. Neutrons do not have an electrical charge.
Enormous energy is present in the bonds that hold the nucleus together. This nuclear energy can be
released when those bonds are broken. The bonds can be broken through nuclear fission, and this
energy can be used to produce electricity.

In nuclear fission, atoms are split apart, which releases energy. All nuclear power plants use nuclear
fission, and most nuclear power plants use uranium atoms. During nuclear fission, a neutron collides
with a uranium atom and splits it, releasing a large amount of energy in the form of heat and radiation.
More neutrons are also released when a uranium atom splits. These neutrons continue to collide other
uranium atoms, and the process repeats itself over and over again. This process is called a nuclear chain
reaction. This reaction is controlled in nuclear power plant reactors to produce a desired amount of
heat.

Nuclear energy can also be released in nuclear fusion, where atoms are combined or fused together to
form a larger atom. Fusion is the source of energy in the sun and stars. Nuclear fusion is the subject of
ongoing research as a source of energy for heat and electricity generation, but whether or not it will be
a commercially viable technology is not yet clear because of the difficulty in controlling a fusion
reaction.

Nuclear fuel—uranium
Uranium is the fuel most widely used by nuclear plants for nuclear fission. Uranium is considered a
nonrenewable energy source, even though it is a common metal found in rocks worldwide. Nuclear
power plants use a certain kind of uranium, referred to as U-235, for fuel because its atoms are easily
split apart. Although uranium is about 100 times more common than silver, U-235 is relatively rare.

Most U.S. uranium ore is mined in the western United States. Once uranium is mined, the U-235 must
be extracted and processed before it can be used as a fuel.

Nonrenewable energy sources come out of the ground as liquids, gases, and solids. We use crude oil to
make liquid petroleum products such as gasoline, diesel fuel, and heating oil. Propane and
other hydrocarbon gas liquids, such as butane and ethane, are found in natural gas and crude oil.

All fossil fuels are nonrenewable, but not all nonrenewable energy sources are fossil fuels

Coal, crude oil, and natural gas are all considered fossil fuels because they were formed from the buried
remains of plants and animals that lived millions of years ago.

Uranium ore, a solid, is mined and converted to a fuel used at nuclear power plants. Uranium is not a
fossil fuel, but it is classified as a nonrenewable fuel.