Non-renewable resource
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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A non-renewable resource (also called a finite resource) is a resource that does not renew itself at a sufficient rate for sustainable economic extraction in meaningful human time-frames. An example is carbon-based, organically-derived fuel. The original organic material, with the aid of heat and pressure, becomes a fuel such as oil or gas. Earth minerals and metal ores, fossil fuels (coal, petroleum, natural gas) and groundwater in certain aquifers are all considered non-renewable resources, though individual elements are almost always conserved.
In contrast, resources such as timber (when harvested sustainably) and wind (used to power energy conversion systems) are considered renewable resources, largely because their localized replenishment can occur within time frames meaningful to humans.
See also
- Clean technology
- Energy conservation
- Eurosolar
- Fossil fuel
- Fossil water
- Green design
- Hartwick's rule
- Hermann Scheer
- Hotelling's rule
- Hubbert's peak
- Liebig's law of the minimum
- Natural resource management
- Overfishing
- Peak oil
- Reserves-to-production ratio
- Sustainability