Natural Resources on Earth: Nonrenewable

Lesson Plan - Get It!

Audio:

Energy is a source of power, like electricity or heat.

Explore the nonrenewable resources used to create energy in this lesson.

Nonrenewable resources are natural resources found on the earth. These natural resources cannot be replaced because they take many many years to form.

This means once they run out, we won't have any left! 

Some of these nonrenewable resources are harmful to the environment. Many of these resources pollute the air, land, and water and contribute to habitat destruction.

• Are you ready to learn about different types of nonrenewable resources and how they impact the environment?

Nonrenewable energy can come from fossil fuels. Coal, natural gas, and crude oil are all fossil fuels used in different ways worldwide.

These fossil fuels can be found deep within the earth. Fossil fuels come from decaying plants and animals.

Drills are used to retrieve fossil fuels like crude oil and natural gas from beneath the ground. Some drills can even be used to find fossil fuels that are beneath the ocean floor!

Fossil fuels can be dangerous. They pollute the air, land, and water. If there is an oil spill in the ocean, it affects all the life in the ocean and kills off many plants and animals.

When fossil fuels are burned, this pollutes the air and hurts the ozone layer, the atmosphere layer surrounding and protecting the earth.

Coal can be mined and used to generate electricity that is used to create steel and cement and can be converted into a liquid fuel. Like all other fossil fuels, it is dangerous for the environment.

Pollution from burning coal causes acid rain, creates hazardous waste, and pollutes the land and air. Acid rain is rain that is acidic and causes harm to forests and bodies of water.

Nuclear energy is energy that is created from the heat created by uranium or nuclear fuel.

Uranium is radioactive, meaning it is unstable and will break down. This breakdown creates hot steam that is then changed into energy.

Although many people think that the billowing white clouds you see above nuclear power plants are some terrible pollution, it's not. It's just steam created from water.

Nuclear power is emissions-free, meaning it doesn't release pollutants into the air like other nonrenewable resources.

Like most nonrenewable resources, nuclear power can potentially harm the environment. When nuclear power is used, a minimal amount of dangerous radioactive waste is created. Mining uranium can also harm the land and pollute the air.

There is also a minimal chance that a nuclear plant could have a meltdown. This would result in radioactive steam entering the air, and anywhere near where the nuclear meltdown happened is rendered unusable.

For example, the Russian Chernobyl nuclear power plant had a meltdown in 1986. To this day, no humans live in the area, although many plant and animal species have returned.

• Could a nuclear meltdown similar to the one at Chernobyl happen in the United States?

It is not likely.

The Chernobyl nuclear disaster had one cause — human error. Workers at the nuclear power plant were experimenting in unapproved and dangerous ways. Their negligence and poorly built infrastructure made from the wrong materials caused the meltdown.

The most serious nuclear-related incident in the US took place in 1979 at a power plant in Pennsylvania named Three Mile Island.

Human error was to blame here as well.

Workers were not adequately trained. Part of the system malfunctioned, and the plant automatically began an emergency cooling system.

Everything was working as it should. However, a worker did not see an important warning light and decided to manually override this automatic safety feature, resulting in a meltdown.

Although much of the public points to Three Mile Island as a reason not to use nuclear power, many scientists disagree. They argue that this was a situation where both mechanical and human failure occurred, and yet the disaster was contained.

Residents around the plant were only exposed to a small amount of radiation — about 12 times the exposure from a chest X-ray. No observable health effects have been seen in the years since Three Mile Island.

You learned about several types of nonrenewable resources.

• Can you explain what the word nonrenewable means and give two examples of nonrenewable resources?

Then, move to the Got It? section.