Why is coal a non-renewable resource?
Posted on May 15, 2008 | By Denny Tyler | 3 Comments
This website has been receiving a large amount of visitors through search engines with the title to this post as the search phrase. Being as that is the case I thought it appropriate to answer the question.
Non-renewable definition –
1. That cannot be renewed: a nonrenewable license.
2. Of or relating to an energy source… that is not replaceable after it has been used.
Non-renewable resource definition –
A non-renewable resource is a natural resource which cannot be produced, grown, generated, or used on a scale which can sustain its consumption rate, once depleted there is no more available for future needs.
Coal is a fossil fuel formed in ecosystems where plant remains were preserved by water and mud from oxidization and biodegradation thus, sequestering atmospheric carbon. coal Wikipedia
Fossil fuels are non-renewable resources because they take millions of years to form, and reserves are being depleted much faster than new ones are being formed. Concern about fossil fuel supplies is one of the causes of regional and global conflicts. The production and use of fossil fuels raise environmental concerns. A global movement toward the generation of renewable energy is therefore under way to help meet increased energy needs. fossil fuel Wikipedia
Nonrenewable energy sources come out of the ground as liquids, gases and solids. Right now, crude oil (petroleum) is the only naturally liquid commercial fossil fuel. Natural gas and propane are normally gases, and coal is a solid. Coal, petroleum, natural gas, and propane are all considered fossil fuels because they formed from the buried remains of plants and animals that lived millions of years ago. Nonrenewable Energy
There are three major forms of fossil fuels: coal, oil and natural gas. All three were formed many hundreds of millions of years ago before the time of the dinosaurs – hence the name fossil fuels. The age they were formed is called the Carboniferous Period. It was part of the Paleozoic Era. “Carboniferous” gets its name from carbon, the basic element in coal and other fossil fuels. Where Fossil Fuels Come From
Fossil fuels are found within the rocks of the Earth’s surface. They are called fossil fuels because they are thought to have been formed many millions of years ago by geological processes acting on dead animals and plants, just like fossils.
Coal, oil and natural gas are fossil fuels. Because they took millions of years to form, once they are used up they cannot be replaced. Non-renewable energy resources
Tens of thousands of years ago when plants and animals died they became buried in mud and sand.
Over time many more layers of mud and sand covered these plants and animals, leaving them buried deep below the earth’s surface.
Great pressure and heat caused the mud and sand to change, hardening it into peat and then sedimentary rock. Over thousands and thousands of years, the buried plants and animals turned into fossil fuels. Fossil fuels
Fossil fuels were formed from organic matter (plants and animals) which were buried millions of years ago. In time, the pressure of the massive weight of rock and mud which covered the organic matter created heat, which changed this matter over a period of several hundred million years to oil (remains of ancient marine organisms), coal (remains of ancient swamps and forests), and natural gas. We use these energy sources as fuel; therefore, they are called fossil fuels. NON-RENEWABLE RESOURCES
Our remnants of wilderness will yield bigger values to the nation’s character and health than they will to its pocketbook, and to destroy them will be to admit that the latter are the only values that interest us. – Aldo Leopold
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May 15th, 2008 @ 11:26 pm
perhaps this is controversial, but it seems to me that there is a tight correlation between folks who think that ‘coal is given to man by god under his dominion and we should use it’ and ‘the earth is less than 10 000 years old no matter what science says’.
this is the crux of the identity politics movement that we see working from the inside out in appalachia. it is one step away from calling the opposition to MTR ‘godless’ or ‘secular progressive’ or ‘liberal’.
if coal or oil were really renewable resources (they’re not, in any honest use of the word ‘renewable’) would it change the reality of the horror of MTR? I don’t think so.
Are ramps and speckled trout a renewable resource? If you renew some resources doesn’t that preclude the renewal of others?
Like the tone in your WVA post Denny. You are a rock star. Will you be at MJS?
May 16th, 2008 @ 11:01 am
In my opinion – if coal was put here by God then it is closer to the forbidden fruit than something we are supposed to use.
I had tossed around the idea of going to MJS but no I won’t be there.
January 11th, 2012 @ 12:18 pm
i like this website