Energy-Nonrenewable,Renewable - Essay Example

Major consumers of energy include the industrial, transportation and residential sectors (Gaudreault 683). There has been shifting trends in energy conservation. The conservation efforts involve the use of other alternative forms of energy and increasing awareness to conserve energy for use by the future generations. Oil is the fulcrum of the modern society. It is used run heavy machinery. It also continues to fuel serious political tensions. As a non-renewable resource, its continued use may result into ultimate depletion.

This is because oil takes a long period to renew. It has to take organic matter to live, die and decay to form oil. Decaying plants and animals form the basis for fossil fuels. It is estimated that the process of oil formation takes 300 million years (Pfeiffer 287). The combustion of these fossil fuels provides the energy that man needs. Energy sources include oil, coal and hydroelectric power. Non-renewable resources are resources that do not renew themselves at a sufficient rate for sustainable extraction.

Examples of these resources include carbon-based and derived fuel. The organic material becomes fuel oil, gas after it is subjected to varying amounts of heat and pressure. Fossil fuels such as coal, natural gas and petroleum are other examples of renewable sources. These resources contribute significantly to environmental degradation because of inability to be reused after extraction (Arthur 1510). Humans extract other non-renewable sources of energy such as minerals and metal ores since they exist within the earth’s crust.

Their extraction is made possible by the natural geological processes such as weathering, heat. These processes occur due to many years of crustal recycling, tectonic subsidence and plate tectonics. The deposits of these metal ores can be extracted by humans for their economic gains within the human-time