Renewable vs. Nonrenewable Resources Renewable vs. Nonrenewable

1) Renewable resources can be replenished within a relatively short time (months, or years, or tens of years).

2) Nonrenewable resources form very slowly, over millions of years, over time periods of millions of years.

3) Nonrenewable resources form very slowly on or within the Earth.

4) Nonrenewable resources accumulate slowly according to the human time scale.

5) Earth has a set quantity of the resources.

6) Renewable resources include: fresh water fresh air

6) Renewable resources include: plants plant products (food, natural fibers, lumber, fuel)

6) Renewable resources include: animals animal products (food, leather)

6) Renewable resources include: wind moving water

6) Renewable resources include: sun for energy

7) Nonrenewable resources include: fossil fuels (coal, oil, natural gas)

7) Nonrenewable resources include: soil

7) Nonrenewable resources include: metallic minerals (iron, copper, gold, silver, lead, mercury, zinc, uranium)

7) Nonrenewable resources include: nonmetallic minerals (kaolin, salt, lime, sulfur, diamonds, sand)

8) The future supply of most non-renewable resources is uncertain, but “running out” is less of an issue than how much it will cost to extract the resource as the supply diminishes.