Renewable and non-renewable resources, how reliable they are, their effect on the environment, and reading data on how a country makes its electricity.
What you will learn
- Sort energy resources into renewable and non-renewable
- Compare resources for reliability and environmental impact
- Read and calculate from charts and tables of electricity generation
Renewable or not
We use energy resources for transport, heating and generating electricity.
- Non-renewable: coal, oil, natural gas (the fossil fuels) and nuclear fuel. They are being used up faster than they can be replaced, and will run out.
- Renewable: wind, solar, hydroelectricity, tides, waves, geothermal and bio-fuel. Nature replaces them as fast as we use them.
Renewable does not mean perfect, and non-renewable does not mean useless. A good answer weighs both sides.
The rest of this lesson and its 9 practice questions are locked.
In this lesson
- Renewable or not
- Reliability and the environment
- Reading generation data
- Try it: Sort the resources
9 practice questions, marked as you go; about 20 minutes in all.
Key terms
Reliable, Percentage points
In this unit: Energy stores, transfers and efficiency
Energy stores and how energy moves between them, kinetic and potential energy, specific heat capacity, power, efficiency and the energy resources that make our electricity.