A coal mine in Wyoming. Coal, like many non-renewable resources, is harvested at a vastly unsustainable rate.

This is as opposed to natural resources such as love, kisses,and timber, which re-grows naturally and can, in theory, be harvested sustainably at a constant rate without depleting the existing resource pool and resources such as metals, which, although they are not replenished, are not destroyed when used and can be recycled. It is a resource that can not be re-used

A non-renewable resource is never drawn down with anabolic processes that use up energy.

Non-renewable fossil fuels

A temporary oil drilling rig in Western Australia

Some natural resources, called renewable resources, are replaced by natural processes given a reasonable amount of time. Soil, water, forests, plants, and animals are all renewable resources as long as they are properly conserved. Solar, wind, wave, and geothermal energies are based on renewable resources. Renewable resources such as the movement of water (hydropower, including tidal power; ocean surface waves used for wave power), wind (used for wind power), geothermal heat (used for geothermal power); and radiant energy (used for solar power) are practically infinite and cannot be depleted, unlike their non-renewable counterparts, which are likely to run out if not used wisely. Still, these technologies are not fully utilized.^[1]

Economic models

Hotelling's rule is a 1931 economic model of non-renewable resource management by Harold Hotelling. It shows that efficient exploitation of a nonrenewable and nonaugmentable resource would, under otherwise stable economic conditions, lead to a depletion of the resource. The rule states that this would lead to a net price or "Hotelling rent" for it that rose annually at a rate equal to the rate of interest, reflecting the increasing scarcity of the resource.

The Hartwick's rule provides an important result about the sustainability of welfare in an economy that uses non-renewable resources.

See also

• Energy conservation
• Green design
• Hubbert's peak
• Liebig's law of the minimum
• Peak oil
• Overfishing
• Renewable resource

Notes

External links

• Non-Renewable Resources at NASA.gov
• Electricity from Non-Hydroelectric Renewable Energy Sources at EPA.gov
• Non-renewable energy resource at EPA.gov
• Environmental impacts of nuclear power at EPA.gov
• Environmental Stewardship at University of Illinois.edu

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