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Non-renewable energy resources
Energy resources provide us with energy. There are different types of energy resource, including fuels such as coal or food, and stores of energy such as batteries or the wind. We can divide energy resources into two categories, non-renewable and renewable.
- Non-renewable energy resources cannot be replaced once they are all used up.
- Renewable energy resources can be replaced, and will not run out.
Non-renewable: fossil fuels
The fossil fuels are coal, oil and natural gas. They formed millions of years ago from the remains of living things. Coal was formed from plants, and oil and natural gas from sea creatures. When the living things died, they were gradually buried by layers of rock. The buried remains were put under pressure and chemical reactions heated them up. They gradually changed into the fossil fuels. You can find out more about this here Fossil fuels .
Coal is a fossil fuel
The fossil fuels are non-renewable energy resources. Once we have used them all up, they will take millions of years to replace, if they can be replaced at all.
The energy stored in the fossil fuels originally came from sunlight. Plants used light energy from the Sun for photosynthesis to make their chemicals. This stored chemical energy was transferred to stored chemical energy in animals that ate the plants. When the remains of the plants and animals became fossil fuels, their chemical energy was stored in the fuels. The energy is transferred to the surroundings as thermal energy and light energy when the fuels burn.
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