A resource something that people use to meet their needs. If we think about the things that we do every day brushing our teeth, eating food, traveling from one place to another, in order to do these things we need resources. There are 3 main types of resources: human resources, capital resources, and natural resources. Human resources are the people who provide the service, a service is something that someone does for you. For example, doctors help people feel better when they are sick. They are an important human resource as people need doctors in order to stay healthy. Human resources are also people who make goods, goods are things that you use, eat or drink. Chefs are human resources that make goods for people to eat. Capital resources are the goods that are made and used to provide a service. When you go to a restaurant you are served food, but as you know there are special tools and equipment needed to make your food like stoves, pots, cooking utensils such as knives, are capital resources.
Chefs need them in order to do their jobs. Coming to natural resources, they are the things that are found on earth and can be used by people. We can use water, plants, and soil, as natural resources come from nature they are not made by people. Natural resources are things in nature we need them every day. We need air to breathe, water to drink, we also need plants to eat, soil to grow plants. Some of the natural resources are the sunlight, air and water, soil and rocks, plants and animals, coal, and oil. Natural resources are found all over the world. Some of them are found under the earth’s surface. All plants and animals use oxygen from the air to breathe, plants use sunlight water from the soil and carbon dioxide from the air to make their own food. We eat these plants, their fruits, and their vegetables. We make use of wood obtained from plants to make different things like desks, chares, wardrobes, etc. We also obtain the paper from plants, we use rocks and minerals to make metals, pottery, and glass. Cole is a source of energy that powers and heats our home. There are so many other ways in which natural resources can be used. These natural resources will not last forever, some of these natural resources are renewable. The word renewable means being replaced from time to time, so these resources will be there for a long time.
We will be able to use them again and again, nature has a way of making these natural resources more and more. For example, the sunlight will be here for many years, water can be used many times as it gets recycled. Nature makes more rocks, the rocks break down making more soil. More wind is also made by nature, plants and animals also produce more of their own kind; all of these resources are renewable. So renewable resources are those natural resources which are being replaced by nature over time. But some of the resources take a very long time to make, we have to be more careful with these. The coal and the oil were created from plants and animals as they lived for a very long time ago. They died and were buried under the earth, after millions of years they became coal and oil. Because we can’t make more of them we may run out of them, such resources are called non-renewable. So non-renewable resources are those resources that take time to be replaced. It is very important to converse these, that means to take care of them and not waste them. We can use other sources of energy, we can use energy from renewable resources, we can use the sunlight, the wind, and water. We can use energy from plants, we can also use the energy from the ground.
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Renewable Energy Power The World
If we see every year the world uses about 35 billion barrels of oil, this a very massive scale of fossil fuel dependency that the intern pollutes the earth and it will not be available forever. The scientist has estimated that we have consumed about 40 % of the oil of the world according to the present estimates. At this rate, we will run out of oil and gas in 50 years or so, and in about a century for coal. On the other side, if we see, we have abundant sun, water, and wind all of these are renewable energy sources, implying that we will not use them up over time. In case there is a chance that we could exchange our fossil fuel dependence for the existing renewable sources, but it is calculated that the renewable energy will only provide for about 13 % of our basic needs, which is because reaching 100 % requires renewable energy that is inexpensive and accessible.
This presents us with a huge challenge, even if we are willing to ignore the politics involved and focus merely on the science and engineering of it. It would be better if we understand the problem first, by understanding how it is that we use the energy. Global energy use is a diverse and complex system and their different elements require their own solutions. Let us focus on the 2 most that are required in our everyday life, that is the electricity and liquid fuels. Electricity powers blast furnaces, elevators, computers, and all manner of things at home, businesses, and manufacturing. Meanwhile, liquid fuels play a crucial role in almost all forms of transportation. Focusing on the electrical portion, as we know that our technology is more advanced in order to capture all of that energy from the renewables, and usually, there is an ample supply.
The sun continuously radiates about 173 quadrillion watts of solar energy at the earth, which is almost 10,000 times our present need. It is estimated that the surface that spans several hundred thousand kilometers would be needed to power humanity at our present usage level. It is not so easy to build that as there are several hurdles on the way like efficiency and energy transportation. To maximize efficiency solar plants must be located in the areas with lots of sunshine year-round, like deserts. But those are very far away from densely populated regions where the energy demand is high. If we look closer there are other forms of renewable energy that we can use to draw energy from such as biomass, hydroelectric, and geothermal, but there are limits to these based on the availability and as well as location. If we see connected electric energy in a network with power lines that are crisscrossing around the globe it will enable us to transport this power from where it gets generated to where it is needed the most. But in a building, there is a system on this scale that faces a huge price tag. The cost can lower the cost by developing advanced technologies to capture energy with more efficiency. The infrastructure for transporting energy will also have to change drastically. Present-day powerlines lose about 6 to 8 % of the energy they carry because wire material dissipates energy through resistance. Longer power lines mean more energy loss. Superconductors could be one solution, such materials can transport energy without dissipation. Unfortunately, they work if cooled to low temperatures which require energy and defeat the purpose.
In order to benefit from that technology, we are required to discover brand new superconducting materials that will be able to operate even at room temperature. And now lets us focus on the important oil-driven liquid fuels, the scientific challenge there is to store renewable energy in an easily transportable form. Recently we have gotten at producing lithium-ion batteries which are lightweight and high energy density. But even the best of these stores have about 2.5 megajoules per kilogram, which is 20 times less than the energy in one kilogram of gasoline. To be a truly competitive car battery would have to store much more energy without adding cost. We see more challenges when we talk about the bigger vessels which are ships and planes.
To power a cross Atlantic flight for a jet, we need a battery weighing about 1000 tons. This usually demands us to have a technological leap with the help of new materials, having a higher energy density, and better with the storage. One promising solution would be finding efficient ways to convert solar into chemical energy. This is already happening in the labs, but the efficiency is still too low to allow it to reach the market. To find novel solutions we need a lot of creativity, invitation, and powerful incentives. If we talk about the transition towards all renewable energies it is a more complex problem that usually involves technology, politics, and economics. Priorities on how to tackle these challenges depend on the specific assumptions that we have to make trying to solve such a multifaceted problem. But there is ample reason to be optimistic that we will get there. Top scientific minds around the world are working on these problems and making breakthroughs all the time. Many of the government and businesses are investing in technologies that harness the energy all around us.
To Conserve Natural Resources
Natural resources are very important for living things, humans, animals, and plants need natural resources in order to survive. This is why conservation is so important, which is the protection of natural resources. We need to consider the fact of what is going to happen if we don't conserve important things such as water and clean air. This can lead to scarcity, which is a state where there is not enough of something. If we look at the drylands, which are a result of not enough water to grow healthy plants due to water scarcity, this is also called a drought. We can help to prevent water scarcity by conserving water. Conservation also prevents pollution, as it makes our natural resources air, water, dirty, and unsafe to use. We need energy such as natural gas, and electricity to use things in our home televisions, stoves, and refrigerators that need energy in order to work.
Natural resources such as coal or gas are burnt in order to produce energy the smoke spreads into the air, which can be bad for the environment. Some energy companies use solar power or energy from the sun instead. Wind power can also be used to create electricity, and we can save energy by reducing the amount of electricity that we use. The less energy that we use, the less we need to produce it. So we need to see how we can conserve the natural resources, let us see at a few tips by which we can conserve energy walk or ride a bike instead of riding cars and buses as vehicle smoke can cause pollution. Using less water, we can turn off the water when we are brushing our teeth, after washing the hands. Turn off the things that use electricity when you are not using them. The use of sunlight instead of electrical light if you have access to it. Together we can protect the earth and its resources through conservation.
FAQs on Resources on Earth
1) What is Renewable Energy?
Ans: Renewable energy is the term used to describe a group of energy technology derived from sources that do not deplete whether it can be replenished within the human lifetime. The most common renewable energy sources are solar, which harnesses the suns for energy, the wind which utilizes the motion of the wind to create electricity, hydropower which uses moving water to generate power, biomass which refers to a large group of technology that uses living or recently living organisms and waste to create energy, tidal which uses the rise and fall of tides to create electricity, geothermal which uses the internal heat from the earth for energy. Nuclear energy is not considered a renewable energy source, it is considered an alternative energy source. While renewable energy accounts for the minority share of the world’s energy supply, it is also the fastest-growing energy supply on the planet. Renewable energy is sought after because it is a clean source of energy, meaning that it does not directly produce greenhouse gas emissions or air pollutants. While renewable energy sources are better for the environment, they also face several challenges, the main one being low efficiencies, high capital cost, and intermittency that’s renewable energy.
2) Will Fossil Fuels Run Out of Existence?
Ans: The vast majority of fossil fuel comes from plants and animals that lived around 300 to 400 million years ago. So when these plants and animals died a long time ago they were covered in layers of earth or silt. Because of the combined action of 3 things, one the compression from the weight from all that stuff, two the micro-organisms in there decomposing the content, and three the heat underground that transforms them into potential fuel. Coal is the remnant of ancient plants, while the oil and natural gas mostly come from marine creatures, the natural gas is made in deeper, hotter regions where they will all get a little more cooked. Now we dig or drill this stuff out of the ground and because it has been accumulating for a long time initially. Initially, there was a lot but because it takes so long to make but we are using it much faster than it can possibly be replaced. This means there is effectively a fixed amount of fuel on earth and we are using it up. So yes, we can say that fossil fuels are going to run out.
