Question

What are inexhaustible and exhaustible resources?

Answer 1

Non-renewable (exhaustible) and renewable (inexhaustible) resources)

• These are natural resources which cannot be replenished, re-grown or regenerated.
• Once used up, they are gone forever.
• Examples are: coal, natural gas, petroleum etc.
• These take millions of years in nature to form, and cannot be grown or replicated in an industrial set up.
• The reverse of this is renewable resources, which can be replenished (and hence we will never run out of those), as wood, timber etc. agriculture, forests and plants are in this category.
• After use they are re-grown through a proper afforestation policy.
• Metals as aluminum can be reused again and again (recycling aluminum cans), and are thus counted as non exhaustible resources.
• Solar, wind, water, tidal, hydroelectric and geothermal energy are forms of renewable energy.
• Water is also a renewable resource because of the natural "water cycle" where it goes into the atmosphere through evaporation, and then comes back to earth in the form of rain, through condensation.
• Their source is infinite.