I just don't get it!???!!?

Question

I just don't get the diffrence between nonrenewable and renewable resources!...can you please explain it to me!?And can you give an example of each?

Answer 1

Renewable resources are resources that us humans can use over and over again without fear of us completely running out of it (such as energy from the sun or water). Nonrenewable resources are resources that we will eventually run out of in the future (such as the natural resources coal and oil).

Answer 2

OK, here's the deal; renewable means you can get more, non-renewable means once it's gone, it's gone, can't get no more. Solar energy is a good example of renewable energy. Charge up a solar battery today, run it dry if you want, there will be more solar energy tomorrow. Groovy...renewable.
Crude petroleum (oil in the ground) is the product of fossils (bones of animals) which have been compressed in the earth for a loooong time. Ever heard of the term fossil-fuels? That's where it comes from. This is available to us because of the tremendous die off of animals during the dinosaur extinction. Once this resource is gone, it's gone. Can't get no more. It takes millions of years to generate a fossil fuel. So, we keep using oil and oil products mindlessly. Once it's gone, there won't be anymore. Stupid....non-renewable. Hope this helps.

EDIT: Now that you've gotten some definitions, maybe this will help you understand what's going on in the world today. If a store was selling candy bars for 5 million dollars each, you would go to a different store and buy it cheaper, or you could even make your own. That would be like a renewable resource. Since oil is non-renewable, the people who have the land under which the oil fields lie are in a powerful position. You can't go get oil somewhere else, and you can't make your own. Nobody can. So the price of this non-renewable resource grows, and will continue to grow, until there is none left.

Answer 3

Renewable by definition is a resource that can be regenerated in under 100 years, like paper, as it takes less than 100 years for trees to regrow. Nonrenewable means it takes over 100 years (though its usually much longer than that) and is almost impossible to replace. This is true of fossil fuels such as coal and the one everyone is worried about running out of - oil (the kind used to make gasoline) as they take millions of years to form

Answer 4

Renewable resources are resources that can be had by repeating a process (i.e. growing trees to make paper. You cut the tree down, you plant a seedling, you cut the tree down, you plane a seedling) Renewable resources continue on in a cycle that can be had multiple times and replenished in a fairly short period of time.

A non-renewable resource is something like oil or coal. Once you extract the oil or dig up the coal, it's gone. There's no way to bring back the oil or coal in the short term, only to wait for millions of years for it to form through the geological processes.

You can think of it this way, if it helps: Renewable resources are a short term rotation (days, weeks, years, decades) where as non renewable resources are on a period that extends out past many life times (hundreds, thousands of years).

Answer 5

I never sit back and analyze what is renewable and what is non-renewable, I just know what it is... given a chart of renewable vs. nonrenewable.. for example : renewable resources are resources that is capable of replemishing, reprocess, and capable of making millions in industry or nature through the process of Chemical Reaction...we are not worry of its' depletion.. However, non-renewable resources are resources that We CAN NOT re-new... it is limited... Although, realistically speaking, everything will decay, and react, and form to another molecule within "TIME".. however, at the rate of consumption vs. renewing the resources, we are depleting all of its resources within decades, but it takes thousands or millions of years to make.... for instance, fossil fuels, coals, etc..

Answer 6

You can't use the gas in your car over again, cause it's gone, it's nonrenewable. Recycle those soda cans cause they can melt them down and make something else out of them, like a lawn chair, a renewable resource.

Answer 7

. Renewable resources are those which are not gone as a result of having used them.
. When something is taken out of the ground and burned as fuel, that which you took out of the ground is gone and is not coming back by any process. This applies to coal, oil and natural gas. It applies to uranium, too. But cetain types of nuclear plants produce more fuel than they consume, so the nuclear industry is not limited in capacity to the amount of uranium in the earth, but I think that the whole business depends on some input of uranium, so in the end, nuclear powe is non-renewable. The amount of uranium available should make nuclear power the cleanest alternative for decades to come, unless solar power development speeds up considerably.
. When you use the flow of water in a stream to turn a wheel or a turbine to do work, that water continues through the hydrologic cycle and the water which came from upstream is replaced by more water coming down as rain or snow to fill the stream and make more power available to you water wheel.
. Not all uses of water represent renewable resources. When fresh water is take from a well in a place like the Permian Basin of Texas. the fresh water being pulled out is water which has been there for millenia. When the fresh water is taken out, brackish water from further down flows up to replace it, so that after years of use, the well becomes brackish and not fit to use. This type of water use is sometimes called "water mining" because something is being removed which is then permanently gone.
. If you grow grass or other fast growing plants to create fuel to burn in a furnace, to make steam to generate electricity, that crop is a renewable resource, because it can be grown back.
. The weather conditions which create the wind will always create more wind, so wind power is renewable.
. Solar power is also a renewable resource, because more sunlight keeps coming in. Technically, the sun is a finite resource, because it will eventually consume its fuel through fusion and its output of heat and light will diminish. But that will take millions of years, so we can ignore that problem for longer than any of us will be around. We can't fix that problem anyway.

Answer 8

Nonrenewable means that when it's gone, we can't get it back, like when an animal becomes extinct.

Renewable means it can be replaced, like solar power.