Non renewable resources

Presented by : chetan chauhan Deepak singh Deepanshu soni Devashish giri

What are non renewable resources?

A non-renewable resource is a natural resource which cannot be reproduced, grown, generated, or used on a scale which can sustain its consumption rate, once depleted there is no more available for future needs. Also considered nonrenewable are resources that are consumed much faster than nature can create them. Fossil fuels (such as coal, petroleum, and natural gas), nuclear power (uranium) and certain aquifers are examples. Metals are prime examples of nonrenewable resources. In contrast, resources such as timber (when harvested sustainably) are considered renewable resources.

Its ten examples

Oil Natural Gas Coal Tar sand Oil Shale Uranium Nuclear Power Minerals Kerosene oil Diesel

Oil

Liquid petroleum --- crude oil --- is the only nonrenewable resource in fluid form. A fossil fuel that is being used up faster than new reserves are discovered, the oil supply may only last through the middle of this century. Industrial nations, with the U.S. far in the lead, are the biggest consumers of crude oil. Gasoline, heating oil, and diesel fuel are the primary uses of the resource, although manufacturers utilize oil as the base for such products as plastics and industrial chemicals.

Natural Gas

Natural gas reserves often share space with underground oil reserves, so the two nonrenewable resources are often extracted at the same time. Natural gas is primarily composed of methane, but contains ethane, propane and butane as well. Once drillers extract natural gas, processing plants remove the propane and butane for use as liquified petroleum gas (LPG), a household and industrial fuel. Consumers use it as a cooking fuel, for heating and sometimes for vehicle fuel. According to the current usage statistics and the volume of world reserves, the supply of natural gas should last another century.

Coal

Coal reserves represent the largest stockpile of nonrenewable resources in the world. Coal is the product of millions of years of pressure on original organic matter from plants buried underground. Bituminous coal, which is the type most commonly found in U.S. reserves, is approximately 85 percent carbon and 3 percent water. More than half of the electricity used in the U.S. is generated in coalburning plants, a process that releases sulfur dioxide, a greenhouse gas, into the atmosphere. The global supply of coal, given the current rate at which it is used, should last at least two more centuries.

Tar sand
Tar

sand is tarry oil that comes from sedimentary rock. Reserves of this nonrenewable resource are only plentiful enough to supply energy for 15 years or so. Extracting tar sand is a labor-intensive process that uses up 1/2 barrel of oil for every barrel of tar sand recovered.

Oil shale
Oil

shale extraction is similarly difficult and energy-intensive. More plentiful than tar sand, current oil shale reserves could fuel international demand for up to a century.

Uranium

Uranium is a radioactive chemical element that naturally occurs in some groundwater, soil and rock. Uranium was deposited in the earth from extraterrestrial events, probably super novae, that occurred billions of years in the past. The primary use of uranium is nuclear energy production. Worldwide uranium reserves are more abundant than mercury, cadmium, and silver reserves. However, U-235, the fuel used in nuclear plants, is very rare. While nuclear power generation does not emit greenhouse gasses, radioactive byproducts create environmental hazards .

Nuclear Power

Nuclear energy may get mentioned in the same breath with renewable power sources like wind and solar because it is clean-burning and therefore more environmentally sound than oil or coal. But nuclear energy is, in fact, a nonrenewable resource. The problem lies in the element that enables nuclear power: uranium. The element uranium is abundant, but only a certain type of uranium, U-235, is used to fuel nuclear power. U-235 must be extracted from mined and processed uranium. The processing produces only small amounts of U-235, making it rare and expensive. Man cannot reproduce this element; we have a limited natural supply.

Minerals
A mineral is a naturally occurring solid chemical substance formed through biogeochemical processes, having characteristic chemical composition, highly ordered atomic structure, and specific physical properties. By comparison, a rock is an aggregate of minerals and/or mineraloids and does not have a specific chemical composition. Minerals range in composition from pure elements and simple salts to very complex silicates with thousands of known forms. The study of minerals is called mineralogy.

Kerosene oil
Kerosene is usually called paraffin in the UK, Southeast Asia and South Africa. A more viscous paraffin oil is used as a laxative. A waxy solid extracted from petroleum is also called paraffin. Kerosene is widely used to power jet engines of aircraft (jet fuel) and some rocket engines, but is also commonly used as a cooking and lighting fuel and for fire toys such as poi. In parts of Asia, where the price of kerosene is subsidized, it fuels outboard motors on small fishing boats.[4]

Diesel

Diesel-powered cars generally have a better fuel economy than equivalent gasoline engines and produce less greenhouse gas emission. Their greater economy is due to the higher energy per-litre content of diesel fuel and the intrinsic efficiency of the diesel engine. While petrodiesel's higher density results in higher greenhouse gas emissions per litre compared to gasoline,[18] the 2040% better fuel economy achieved by modern diesel-engined automobiles offsets the higher per-litre emissions of greenhouse gases, and a dieselpowered vehicle emits 10-20 percent less greenhouse gas than comparable gasoline vehicles.Biodiesel-powered diesel engines offer substantially improved emission reductions compared to petrodiesel or gasoline-powered engines, while retaining most of the fuel economy advantages over conventional gasoline-powered automobiles. However, the increased compression ratios mean there are increased emissions of oxides of nitrogen (NOx) from diesel engines. This is compounded by biological nitrogen in biodiesel to make NOx emissions the main drawback of diesel versus gasoline engines.

Various ways to conserve them

Non

renewable resources are ultimately important for us but it is declining day by day. We should take the following steps to conserve non-renewable resources.

Conservation of minerals

Minerals add to our safety, health and wellbeing. Iron, copper, coal, petroleum and other minerals have a thousand and one uses. The loss of even one of these minerals would affect our life considerably. Careful mining helps us to conserve coal, iron and oildeposits. It seems hard to believe that one day we would have to live without coal or oil. Yet, there are chances that oil and coal will get exhausted if we continue using them at the rate we do today.

Prohibiting wastage of resources

Wastage of resources should be discouraged. For example, using public transport in place of individual vehicles helps to conserve valuable petrol. Use of car-pool system where several people with a common destination go together in one vehicle, saves petrol. Switching off fans, lights and coolers when not in use, using cooking gas economically, use of pressure cookers, using tubelights in place of electric bulb are some ways of conserving non-renewable resources which could help in a big way.

Use of substitutes

Alternative sources of energy like solar energy, wind energy, tidal energy, energy from biomas (biogas), etc., can be used on a large scale to substitute the fossil fuels. Use of solar cookers and biogas for cooking must be encouraged. New materials are being developed to substitute non-renewable resources. For example, plastics are now used to make products that once could be made only out of steel. The use of atomic energy can lessen our dependence on coal and oil.

Recycling resources

All types of metal wastes, glass and paper and plastic can be recycled and used again. The local kabadiwala collects all the junk and carap which is recycled and used again to make paper, plastic containers and metal articles. Although plastic is not a natural resource n itself (it is man-made) but uses up lot of fuel in its manufacturing process. Hence, recycling plastic helps to conserve fuels. Recycling paper helps to conserve forests.

Repair and use

In

India, we do not discard any object or appliance that doesnt work. We get it repaired and reuse it. The repair and use economy helps to conserve resources as it discourages production and wastage.

Some other methods

The use of wind turbines is one way to conserve nonrenewable resources. All over the world, many of the basic functions essential to day-to-day life rely on nonrenewable resources. The most prominent example is the dependency on fossil fuels such as crude oil. The eventual problem is obvious in that so many vital activities rely on things that are finite in supply. Conservation of such resources is vital, not so much because they need to be saved indefinitely, but more so that society can learn to function when they inevitably run out.

The four R
There

are four R s Reduce Recycle Reuse Repair They should be our mantra and they will be useful too.