Have you ever been driving along the motorway and noticed a huge power plant in the middle of nowhere, releasing seemingly endless amounts of fumes? These are examples of energy resources and are necessary for countries to provide the energy to light up cities at night and heat our homes. However, there’s bad news: these resources we depend on are finite and non-renewable, so they will run out someday. Today we are going to cover some of the major non-renewable energy resources, how they are being exploited, and some renewable alternatives that are offering possible solutions.
Causes of Exploitation of Natural Resources
The exploitation of natural resources occurs when natural and finite resources are used for the purpose of economic growth.
Let's first look at the factors that lead to the exploitation of natural resources:
- Overpopulation: an ever-increasing population (around 9 billion in the current day) demands more and more energy from natural resources.
- Deforestation: timber is an essential construction material, so forests worldwide are destroyed and left bare.
- Intensive agriculture: heavy machinery and transport needed for intensive agriculture require masses of fossil fuels to be burnt.
- Consumerism: the consumerist nature of modern society means mass production warehouses and factories need to produce huge amounts of energy to produce sufficient goods.
- Lack of energy conservation: vehicle use, electricity, and heating use masses of energy, often harnessed from fossil fuels.
Ways to Prevent Exploitation of Natural Resources:
Let's now consider how we can prevent the exploitation of natural resources:
- Transition to renewable sources: this will be covered in more detail below but it is important that humans begin to use renewable energy sources as an alternative to fossil fuels.
- Oil and metal ores: the extraction of oil and metal ores is environmentally damaging and a costly process, so needs to be reduced.
- Deforestation and afforestation: forests are often unable to grow back after being logged, so renewable construction materials need to be used and areas must be selectively chosen (less productive) for human development.
- Individuals: on an individual level, we should strive to burn fewer fossil fuels by using less electricity, heating, and fossil fuels and conserve water wherever possible.
- Wetlands: marshy and coastal wetland areas are essential in maintaining nutrient flow and fertility in soils. These areas are easy targets for changes in land use (human development), and this needs to be stopped.
Exploitation of Natural Resources Examples
Synonymous with any environmental debate, fossil fuels are now renowned for their negative impacts on the environment, ecosystems, and human life. Fossil fuels are produced from the compression of organic matter (dead plants and animals) over millions of years. The three types of fossil fuels are oil, gas, and coal.
Fossil fuels do renew in a sense, but this million(s) year timescale is far too large for them to be considered renewable.
Oil
Oil is a resource found under the ground and is the reason behind the extreme wealth of Middle Eastern countries with immeasurable oil reserves. Enormous oil rigs are pumped with heavy machinery (drills, rigs, tankers) all over the globe. Oil is found anywhere from under arid deserts, frozen tundra, and even at the bottom of the sea. Extracting oil is an expensive process, but the rewards far outweigh the costs. Oil reserves around the world are being heavily exploited though, as technological innovations have allowed organisations to find oil reserves in the most remote places, meaning a world with no oil is now a real possibility.
The Middle East is home to vast oil reserves which many countries have gained their enormous wealth from (Qatar, Saudi Arabia).
Gas
Like oil, gas is found in the ground. Rigs and gas pumps are implemented to extract this indispensable fuel for human use. Gas is what allows humans to travel around the world. Most cars, trains, and planes all require petroleum gas for fuel and are a huge part of most people’s lives, especially in developed countries.
Coal
Coal is another fossil fuel that is found underground on land. Coal mines were prevalent all over England after the Industrial Revolution and provided millions of workers with jobs. Coal is very cheap and simple energy resource, but safely extracting it and burning it can be very dangerous for workers. This means there are few coal mines in modern times (some developing countries still depend on them). Coal was the first fossil fuel to be heavily exploited, as coal chimneys have been round for hundreds of years.
Environmental impacts of fossil fuels
Let’s have a look at the environmental impacts of using fossil fuels:
The combustion of fossil fuels releases carbon dioxide (CO2) as a by-product. CO2 is a greenhouse gas, meaning that it will add to the greenhouse effect of the atmosphere and warm the Earth’s surface.
Global warming has wide-spanning consequences for ecosystems and humans. Rising sea levels, melting ice sheets, droughts, increased precipitation, and more frequent extreme weather are a result of increased temperatures.
The ocean absorbs 30% of CO2 emissions, which causes ocean acidification. Lower carbonate saturation resulting from acidification severely impairs the ability of calcifying organisms to build their protective shells.
The incomplete combustion of fossil fuels will produce many dangerous by-products. Sulphur dioxide and nitrous oxide emissions can react with water vapour in clouds and form acid rain, which will damage habitats, pollute waters, and corrode buildings.
Mercury is released during incomplete coal combustion. Inhalation of mercury can cause brain defects in humans. Mercury can also reach aquatic ecosystems and bioaccumulate, which affects ecosystem health and the quality of fish catches.
Humans are especially susceptible to the by-products released from incomplete gas combustion in car exhaust pipes. Metal particulates can clog respiratory systems and can be mutagenic, while carbon monoxide is a colourless, odourless gas which binds to haemoglobin and restricts blood transport around the body.
Large sites of fossil fuel exploitation will have direct impacts too: habitats will be cleared and fragmented to make way for drilling sites and power plants.
The greenhouse effect is the process by which greenhouse gases (CO2, methane, water vapour) absorb infrared radiation and re-emit it in all directions. Therefore, some the IR radiation reflected or re-emitted from the Earth’s surface will be sent back towards the Earth and warm the planet.
Ocean acidification concerns any rise in the pH of the ocean’s chemistry. When carbon dioxide dissolves into the oceans it will dissociate to form carbonic acid and protons. The influx of protons will strip carbonate molecules of protons themselves and form the less useful bicarbonate.
Calcifying organisms are species which require the availability of carbonates to survive. They will absorb these carbonates and use them to form their shells and exoskeletons, secreting calcium carbonate in the process.
Fracking
Fracking is a recently discovered method of energy production. Shale rocks are used in fracking, which involves the pumping of sandy, chemical mixtures at extremely high temperatures and pressures. The rock is shattered under immense forces and releases Shale gas, which can be captured and used for energy. The environmental impacts of fracking are not completely known, but tremors and earthquakes from heavy machinery can disturb nearby ecosystems and human populations.
Alternative Energy Sources
Over the last 30 years, worldwide finite resource exploitation has started to raise serious concerns about the sustainability of producing energy from these methods. In recent years, these concerns have developed into a global realisation that the environmental impacts of fossil fuels are killing our planet. Governments and organisations have started to explore alternative methods of energy production. The key with these methods is that they are renewable, so the materials and forces needed will not deplete over time.
Solar Power
Solar power is energy harnessed from radiation from our Sun. The Sun is not going to stop shining and emitting solar energy anytime soon, so there are no worries about where the energy is coming from. Solar panels are suitable for homeowners because of their size and the fact they can be installed onto roofs. Solar panels work amazingly in tropical regions that receive the sun all year round but are less effective in colder, cloudier locations.
Solar panel batteries must be replaced after roughly 30 years, but there is currently no environmentally friendly way of doing this.
Biofuel
Biofuel is the use of plants to produce energy. Under certain conditions (Suitable light, temperature, nutrients, pH), some species of plants will produce ethanol. The combustion of ethanol will release energy. Wood pellets are extracted from trees after deforestation and can be burnt to release energy from the breakdown of the organic matter. The sustainability of biofuel is based on the fact these trees and plants will absorb the same amount of carbon dioxide that is released from the combustion of the ethanol they produce or their organic material.
Wind Power
Wind turbines allow the force from wind currents to be converted to usable energy. These contraptions are very environmentally friendly as they do not produce any waste and can produce energy for decades when properly maintained. They are much more effective in coastal and especially windy areas that are not blocked by land masses.
Wind turbines emit electrical currents that can negatively impact animals that sense the Earth’s magnetic field and use it for navigation.
Geothermal Energy
Geothermal power concerns harnessing the abundance of energy released from the Earth’s core. This is done by implementing geothermal pumps into the ground that convert heat energy to electricity. Regions with high tectonic plate activity will receive much energy from the Earth’s core, so geothermal pumps are most effective here. However, they are extremely expensive to construct and maintain, so thorough calculations of energy production and costs must be done before any geothermal energy operations.
Hydropower
Hydropower stations work much in the same way as wind turbines. They will use turbines to harness energy from the forces of water currents and produce electricity. These stations are environmentally friendly in the sense they do not create any waste but will obstruct the natural flow of water that the hydrological cycle depends on and disturb aquatic ecosystems.
Energy resource exploitation concerns the use of non-renewable resources for energy production. These include coal, gas, oil, and fracking.
Exploitation of Natural Resources - Key takeaways
- Fossil fuels (coal, gas, oil) are not only a finite resource but also have devastating impacts on the environment as they release carbon dioxide (a greenhouse gas) into the atmosphere.
- Carbon dioxide will contribute to the greenhouse effect, which increases the amount of infrared radiation reaching the Earth’s surface and causes global warming.
- Consequences of global warming include rising sea levels, melting ice sheets, droughts, and increased precipitation.
- Incomplete fossil fuel combustion will also release dangerous by-products like sulphur dioxide and nitrous oxide (which cause acid rain) and dangerous particulates such as carbon monoxide, soot, hydrocarbons, metal particulates.
- Countries are now realising we must switch to renewable energy sources for a sustainable future. Examples of these include solar power, geothermal energy, biofuel, hydropower, and wind power.
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