NATURAL RESOURCES
Resources or natural resources are any form of matter or energy
obtained from the physical environment that meet human needs. This
definition of natural resources is not as simple as it appears. Most
resources are created by human ingenuity. Oil was once a useless
fluid until humans learned how to locate it, extract it from the ground,
and separate it by distillation into various components such as
gasoline, home heating oil, and road tar.
Similarly, coal and uranium
were once useless rocks.
Something may become
useful or useless for human
needs as a result of changes
in the technology of resource
extraction and processing
Whether something is classified as a resource depends on technology,
economics, cultural beliefs, and the environmental effects of finding and
using it.
Natural resources are often classified :
Renewable resources are generally living
resources (fish, and forests, for example), which
can restock (renew) themselves if they are not
overharvested.
Non-renewable resources is a natural resource
that cannot be re-made or re-grown. Often fossil
fuels, such as coal, petroleum and natural gas are
considered non-renewable resources.
The maximum rate at which a renewable resource
can be used without impairing or damaging its
ability to be renewed is called its maximum
sustained yield. If this yield is exceeded a
potentially renewable resource is then converted
to a nonrenewable resource.
Recycling involves collecting and remelting or
reprocessing a resource, whereas reuse involves
using a resource over and over again in the same
form.
On the basis of their stages of developments,
resources can be classified into both Actual and
Potential resources:
The resources pass through various stages of
development before they are actually available. The
resources held actually in stock are called Actual
resources. Even the actual source of resources may
not be possible to be used to their full. The portion
that can be used profitably with the help of available
technology is termed as Potential resourcs. The size
and quantity of a potential resource may change
with changes in technology and time.
Resources can also be classified on
biotic and abiotic:
Biotic resources are derived from animals and
plants (livingworld).
Abiotic resouces are derived from the non-
living world e.g. land, water, and air. Mineral and
power resources are also abiotic resources some
are derived from nature.
Natural capital
Natural resources are natural capital converted
to commodity inputs to infrastructural capital
processes. They include soil, timber, oil, minerals,
and other goods taken more or less as they are
from the Earth.
Nations status
A nation's natural resources often determine its wealth
and status in the world economic system, by
determining its political influence. Developed nations
are those which are less dependent on natural resources
for wealth, due to their greater reliance on
infrastructural capital.
For example, the United States used coal as an export in the early
1900s, and also as a main resource fuel in key industries for production.
Eventually, as transportation costs went down with time, minerals used as
resources became commodities and were traded at world prices.
Conflicts for resources
In recent nears, the depletion of natural capital and
attempts to move to sustainable development have
been a major focus of development agencies. This is of
particular concern in rainforest regions, which hold
most of the Earth's natural biodiversity - irreplaceable
genetic natural capital. Conservation of natural
resources is the major focus of Natural Capitalism,
environmentalism, the ecology movement, and Green
Parties. Some view this depletion as a major source of
social unrest and conflicts in developing nations.
Natural resources
Ecoregion Mineral exploration
Geostrategy Refining
Sustainable forestry Prospecting
Fish Soft energy path
Wood Environment
Metal Landscape
Minerals Land (economics)
List of natural gas fields Soil
List of minerals Causes of war
Petroleum politics Pure water
Mining
DESCRIPTION
An ecoregion, sometimes called a bioregion, is “a relatively
large area of land or water that contains a geographically distinct
assemblage of natural communities”.
Geostrategy is a subfield of geopolitics. As with all strategies,
geostrategy is concerned with matching means to ends - in this
case, a country's resources (whether they are limited or extensive)
with its geopolitical objectives (which can be local, regional, or
global).
Sustainable forestry is a forest management concept. The basic
tenet of sustainable forestry is that the amount of goods and
services yielded from a forest should be at a level the forest is
capable of producing without degradation of the soil, watershed
features or seed source for the future.
Minerals are natural compounds formed through geological
processes. The term “mineral” encompasses not only the
material's chemical composition, but also the mineral’s structure.
Petroleum politics have been an increasingly important aspect
of international diplomacy since the discovery of oil in the
Middle East in the early 1900s.
Mining is the extraction of valuable minerals or other geological
materials from the earth, usually (but not always) from an ore
body, vein, or (coal) seam.
Mineral exploration is the process undertaken by companies,
partnerships or corporations in the endeavour of finding
commercially viable concentrations of ore to mine.
Refining is the process of purification of a substance. The term
is usually used of a natural resource that is almost in a usable
form, but which is more useful in its pure form.
Prospecting is the act of physically searching for minerals,
fossils, precious metals or mineral specimens, and is essentially
analagous to fossicking.
The soft energy path is an energy use and development strategy
delineated and promoted by some energy experts and activists,
such as Amory Lovins and Tom Bender; in Canada, David
Suzuki has been a very prominent (if less specialized) proponent.
The natural environment comprises all living and non-living
things that occur naturally on Earth. In its purest sense, it is thus
an environment that is not the result of human activity or
intervention.
A landscape comprises the visible features of an area of land,
including physical elements such as landforms, living elements of
flora and fauna, abstract elements such as lighting and weather
conditions, and human elements, for instance human activity or
the biult environment.
In economics, land comprises all naturally occurring resources
whose supply is inherently fixed, such as geographical locations
(excluding infrastructural improvements and perhaps natural
capital, which can be degraded by human actions), mineral
deposits, and even geostationary orbit locations and portions of
the electromagnetic spectrum.
Soil is the collection of natural bodies that form in earthy
material on the land surface. The term is popularly applied to the
material on the surface of the earth's moon and Mars, a usage
acceptable within a portion of the scientific community.
RESOURCES
Sometimes people have resources and they
don’t use it or they think that they don’t
have!
Sun´s type Energy and Impact on
Earth
SOLAR POWER
Energy from the Sun — in the form of insolation from sunlight
supports almost all life on Earth via photosynthesis, and drives the
Earth's climate and weather.
Highest insolation areas
Solar power is the technology of obtaining usable energy from the light of
the Sun. Solar energy has been used in many traditional technologies for
centuries and has come into widespread use where other power supplies
are absent, such as in remote locations and in space.
REMOTE PLACES DEVICES
APLICATIONS
Solar energy is currently used in a number of applications:
Heating (hot water, building heat, cooking)
Electricity generation (photovoltaics, heat)
Desalination of seawater
Its application is spreading as the environmental costs and limited supply of
other power sources such as fossil fuels are realized.
SUN ENERGY CAPTING DEVICES
Basic Resource (Sun)
Clean Energy
Necessary to know quantity and quality of solar energy available to install devices
Solar Radiation ( Insolation ) is variable from place to place
Leads to different orientations of devices to intercept solar energy
Check Serpa Portugy
www
Photovoltaic cells
otovoltaic modules that began generating electricity at one of the world's largest solar power
Credit: Business Wire
TYPES OF TECHNOLOGIES
Solar Hot Water – Use sunlight to heat water
Used to heat domestic water or for space heating
Compose by solar solar thermal collectors and a storage tank
The three basic classifications of solar water heaters are:
Active systems which use pumps to circulate water or
a heat transfer fluid
Passive systems which circulate water or a heat
transfer fluid by natural circulation. These are also
called thermosiphon systems
Batch systems using a tank directly heated by sunlight
HEAT WATER FUNCTIONING
SOLAR COOKING
Solar Box Cooking – Traps the sun´s energy in a insulated box
used for cooking
used for Pasteurization
used for fruit canning
Solar cooking is helping many developing countries, both reducing the
demands for local firewood and maintaining a cleaner environment for the
cooks.
SOLAR LIGHTING
Solar Daylighting – Use natural daylight to provide illumination
offsets energy use in electric lighting systems
use of natural light also offers physiological and psychological
benifits. Builiding orientation, exterior shading, sawtooth roofs,
clerestory windows, light shelves, skylights and light tubes are
among the many daylighting features. These features may be
incorporated in existing structures but are most effective when
integrated in a solar design package which accounts for factors
such as glare, heat gain, heat loss and time-of-use
SOLAR LIGHTING FUNCTIONING
Insulation ( light )
PHOTOVOLTAICS
Photovoltaics – devices or banks of devices that use the photovoltaic effect of
semiconductors to generate electricity directly from sunlight
used in very low-power devices such as calculators with
LCDs.
used in remote applications such as roadside emergency
telephones, remote sensing, cathodic protection of pipe lines,
and limited "off grid" home power applications. A third use has
been in powering orbiting satellites and other spacecraft.
NOTE: Until recently, their use has been limited because of high manufacturing costs.
PHOTOVOLTAICS FUNCTIONING
Photovoltaics panels cells in a yatch Photovoltaics bank cells
POWER TOWERS
Power Towers – Know as 'central tower' power plants or 'heliostat' power
plants (power towers) use an array of flat, moveable mirrors (called
heliostats) to focus the sun's rays upon a collector tower (the target). The
high energy at this point of concentrated sunlight is transferred to a
substance that can store the heat for later use.
Used to generate electricity
POWER TOWERS FUNCTIONING
CONCENTRATING COLLECTOR WITH STIRLING ENGINE
CONCENTRATING COLLECTOR WITH STIRLING ENGINE – Solar energy
converted to heat in a concentrating (dish or trough parabolic) collector can
be used to drive a Stirling engine*. The Stirling engine is a type of heat
engine which uses a sealed working gas (i.e. a closed cycle) and does not
require a water supply
Holds the record for converting solar energy into electricity (30 percent
at 1,000 watts per square meter).
Produce little or no power in overcast conditions and incorporate a
solar tracker to point the device directly at the sun.
*The Stirling engine is a type of heat engine which uses a sealed working gas (i.e. a closed cycle) and does not
require a water supply.
COLLECTOR WITH STIRLING ENGINE FUNCTIONING
Solar and
diesel
combinated
powered
yacht
IMPACT ON EARTH
Solar activity has several effects on the Earth :
Because the Earth has a magnetic field, charged particles
from the solar wind cannot impact the atmosphere directly, but
are instead deflected by the magnetic field and aggregate to
form the *Van Allen belts
The most energetic particles can 'leak out' of the belts and
strike the Earth's upper atmosphere, causing auroras, known as
aurorae borealis in the northern hemisphere and aurorae
australis in the southern hemisphere
*The Van Allen belts consist of an inner belt composed primarily ofprotons and an outer belt
composed mostly of electrons. Radiation within the Van Allen belts can occasionally damage
satellites passing through them.
IMPACT ON EARTH
Indirect solar power involves multiple transformations of sunlight
which result in a useable form of energy:
Vegetation uses photosynthesis to convert solar energy to chemical energy
incorporated in biomass. Biomass may be burned directly to produce heat and
electricity or processed into methane (natural gas), hydrogen and other biofuels
Hydroelectric dams and wind turbines are powered by solar energy through its
interaction with the Earth's atmosphere and the resulting weather phenomena
Ocean thermal energy production uses the thermal gradients present across
ocean depths to generate power. These temperature differences are because of
the energy of the sun
Fossil fuels are ultimately derived from solar energy captured by vegetation in
the geological past
Sunlight is collected using focusing mirrors and transmitted via optical fibers into
a building's interior to supplement lighting
Advantages and Disadvantages
Advantages :
The 122 PW* of sunlight reaching the earth's surface is plentiful
compared to the 13 TW** average power consumed by humans.
Solar power is pollution free during use. Production end wastes and
emissions are manageable using existing pollution controls.
Facilities can operate with little maintenance or intervention after initial
setup.
Solar electric generation is economically competitive where grid
connection or fuel transport is difficult, costly or impossible. Examples
include satellites, island communities, remote locations and ocean
vessels.
* Petawatt(1015) ** Terawatt(1012)
Advantages and Disadvantages
Advantages :
When grid connected, solar electric generation can displace the highest
cost electricity during times of peak demand (in most climatic regions),
can reduce grid loading, and can eliminate the need for local battery
power for use in times of darkness and high local demand.
Grid connected solar electricity can be used locally thus minimizing
transmission/distribution losses (approximately 7.2%).
Once the initial capital cost of building a solar power plant has been
spent, operating costs are low when compared to existing power
technologies.
Advantages and Disadvantages
Disadvantages :
Limited power density: Average daily insolation in the E.U. is 3-7 kWh/m2 usable by 7-
17.7% efficient solar panels.
Intermittency: It is not available at night and is reduced when there is cloud cover,
decreasing the reliability of peak output performance or requiring a means of energy
storage. For power grids to stay functional at all times, the addition of substantial amounts
of solar generated electricity would require the expansion of energy storage facilities, other
renewable energy sources, or the use of backup conventional powerplants
Locations at high latitudes or with substantial cloud cover offer reduced potential for solar
power use
Like electricity from nuclear or fossil fuel plants, it can only realistically be used to power
transport vehicles by converting light energy into another form of energy (e.g. battery stored
electricity or by electrolysing water to produce hydrogen) suitable for transport.
Solar cells produce DC which must be converted to AC when used in currently existing
distribution grids. This incurs an energy penalty of 4-12%