We explain what renewable resources are and various examples. Also, differences with inexhaustible and non-renewable resources.
What are renewable resources?
Renewable resources are those natural resources that normally restore their stocks at a rate equal to or greater than consumption by human beings. That is, they are those that, as their name indicates, renew themselves, making them usable almost without the risk of ending in the long term.
Renewal is possible if its consumption is responsible, within the margins recoverable by its natural regeneration processes, since they are not unlimited resources. Furthermore, the responsible consumption of these renewable resources poses a much lower risk to the environment than the consumption of non-renewable resources, such as fossil fuels.
Renewable resources can consist of forms of energy or matter, which human beings are capable of taking advantage of to produce goods or services that make their lives more pleasant.
See also: Renewable energies
Examples of renewable resources
Some examples of renewable energy are:
- Wind energy As a result of the uneven heating of the Earth's crust, the winds travel through it with greater or lesser intensity, being used to generate electricity through wind turbines, which are large windmills connected to electrical generators. This type of energy currently provides 5% of the world's energy, with a much lower environmental impact than other forms of fuel.
- Biofuels Unlike fossil fuels (coal and oil), biofuels are renewable to the extent that they are produced from the decomposition of organic plant matter, which can be harvested for these purposes.
- Geothermal energy This is the name given to the use of the heat of our planet, which at shallow depths is already perceptible and capable of boiling water to mobilize electrical generators. This is how geothermal electricity plants work, using a renewable resource, given that the earth's heat emanates from its fiery core in remote depths, and from the effect on matter of its own density and gravity.
- Drinking water. Our planet is made up of two-thirds of water (oceans, rivers, lakes, ice and atmospheric vapor), part of a water cycle that keeps it flowing and renewing itself. However, only a percentage of it is drinkable, that is, it is safe for human consumption. Therefore, in principle, it is a renewable resource; The water on the planet may never be exhausted, but it may become practically undrinkable if we contaminate it at a higher rate than it can be purified.
Non-renewable resources
Non-renewable resources are, as their name indicates, those that are not able to naturally renew themselves or that they do so at a rate so slow that it would never compensate for the speed of their consumption by humanity.
These natural resources they tend to disappear to run out, and that is why they must be managed with a criterion of scarcity, even if they are momentarily abundant. Examples of this type of resources are oil, coal and natural gas.
Inexhaustible resources
Inexhaustible resources are those that are present in nature in such abundance that It is practically impossible to exhaust them. That is why they are also known as superabundant resources.
Examples of this type of resources are hydrogen, land, seas or solar energy.
Continue in: Inexhaustible resources
References
- “Renewable resources” on Wikipedia.
- “Renewable and non-renewable resources” (video) in Educabolivia.
- “What examples of renewable resources exist?” at Twinenergy.
- “Renewable resources” in the Economic Zone.
- “Renewable resources” in EconLink.
- “Renewable Resource” in Investopedia (English).
