RENEWABLE RESOURCES

- Nature has provided us with various natural assets that we can use in our everyday life.

- These are present since the existence of the earth got inhabited by living organisms.

- Natural assets, also known as natural resources are the resources that are present naturally on our planet.

- For Ex. fossil fuels, providing fruits and vegetables, solar energy, oxygen and mineral fuels.
- On the basis of renewability, natural resources have different categorisations. Natural Resources are split up into two

sections namely,

 Renewable and Non-renewable resources. They differ from each other based on their existence, exhaustibility, and

several other fundamental aspects.

- Renewable resources relate to those resources that are available to the living organisms naturally and there is no

chance that these can get exhausted in some time.

- On the other hand, Non-renewable resources are the exhaustible resources that can get exhausted if excessive usage

is made.
 Renewable Energy Resource

 Energy is one of the major inputs for the economic development of the country. Any sustainable energy source that

comes from the natural environment is a renewable energy source. Renewable energy is inexhaustible and a clean

alternative to fossil fuels. In this article, we will learn about the types and sources of renewable energy.
 What is Renewable Resources Energy?

 Renewable energy resources is energy that is produced from natural processes and continuously replenished. A few examples of renewable
energy are sunlight, water, wind, tides, geothermal heat, and biomass. The energy that is provided by renewable energy resources is used in 5
important areas such as air and water cooling/heating, electricity generation, the rural sector, and transportation.

 According to a report in 2016 by REN21, the global energy consumption by the use of renewable energy resources contributed to 19.2% in 2014
and 23.7% in 2015. Many countries have started to invest in these renewable energy resources as these resources will help in maintaining
sustainable development. The amount of investment in 2015 was about 286 billion dollars and major sectors were biofuel, solar power, wind, and
hydroelectricity.

 The existence of renewable energy resources is spread over a wide geographical area in comparison to the conventional energy resources which
are often concentrated in a limited number of countries like the oil and gas are mostly concentrated in the Middle East countries. The use of
renewable energy resources in energy generation is resulting in less pollution and has a significant effect on economic benefits and energy
security.


 Examples of Renewable Energy
 We can define renewable energy as those energies which can never be depleted. The importance of renewable
energy is invaluable. These types of energy sources are different from fossil fuels, such as oil, coal, and
natural gas. Some examples of renewable energy sources are:

• Wind energy

• Solar energy

• Geothermal energy

• Hydropower

• Biomass energy
 Sources of Renewable Energy

 The sources could sustain for a longer period of time and can easily be renewed often. Sustainable sources are

biomass, nuclear power, geothermal, wind energy, solar power, tidal power, and wave power.

 The sources of renewable energy are known to be less polluting and therefore the whole world is looking forward

to new carbon emission norms, where carbon will play a major role in developing new factories and industries.

They will be rated according to the carbon emission and the products that they are producing will be rated

accordingly.
 Types of Renewable Energy

1. Solar Energy: The radiant light and heat energy from the sun is harnessed with the use of solar collectors. These solar

collectors are of various types such as photovoltaics, concentrator photovoltaics, solar heating, (CSP) concentrated solar power,

artificial photosynthesis, and solar architecture. This collected solar energy is then used to provide light, heat, and different

other forms of electricity.

2. Wind Energy: The energy we get from winds is known as wind energy. For this, windmills have been used for hundreds of

years to pump out water from the ground. We use large tall wind turbines that allow winds to generate electricity. The natural

airflow on the surface of the earth is used to run the wind turbines. The modern-day wind turbines range from about 600

Kilowatt to 5 Megawatts, for commercial purposes these are rated with an output power of 1.5 to 3 Megawatts. The most

preferred locations for these wind turbines to be installed are the areas which and strong and have constant airflows on offshore

and sites that are at high altitudes.

3. Hydroelectricity: According to statistics, hydroelectricity generated around 16.6% of the global energy resources and constituted about 70% of

all renewable electricity. This energy is another alternative source of energy that is generated by the construction of dams and reservoirs on the

flowing water, the kinetic energy from the flowing water is used to run the turbines which generate electricity. Tidal power converts the energy of

tides and Wave power which captures the energy from the surface of the ocean waves for power generation. These two forms of hydropower also

have huge potential in electric power generation.

4. Geothermal Energy: It is the energy that is generated from the thermal energy which is stored in the earth. The heat energy is captured from

sources such as hot springs and volcanoes and this heat is directly used by industries for heating the water and other purposes.
5. Biomass Energy: This type of energy is derived from biomass which is a type of biological material derived from

living organisms and plant-derived materials which are called lignocellulosic biomass. Biomass can be directly used via

combustion to produce heat and indirectly it can be used to convert to biofuels. Biomass can be converted to other

usable forms of energy such as transportation fuels like ethanol, biodiesel, and methane gas.