RESEARCH STARTER

Renewable resources

Renewable resources refer to natural resources that can replenish themselves, ensuring availability for future generations. This category includes not only renewable energy sources like solar and wind power but also essential elements such as water, soil, forests, and wildlife. Unlike nonrenewable resources, which deplete faster than they can regenerate, renewable resources can sustainably meet current needs if managed properly. However, overuse or mismanagement can lead to depletion, highlighting the importance of conservation practices.

Solar energy plays a significant role in renewable resources, encompassing techniques such as passive and active solar heating, as well as photovoltaic cells that convert sunlight into electricity. Other forms of renewable energy include hydroelectricity generated from moving water and wind energy harnessed through turbines. Geothermal energy, derived from heat beneath the Earth's surface, and biomass, which includes organic materials used for energy, are also vital components of renewable resources. Collectively, these resources contribute to a sustainable energy future while supporting diverse ecosystems and human needs.

Full Article

DEFINITION: Natural resources that are capable of replenishing themselves for future use

Nonrenewable resources such as coal, oil, gas, and mineral deposits regenerate themselves too slowly to keep up with human demand; once consumed, they are gone. By contrast, sustainably managed renewable resources can meet current needs and still provide for generations to come. Misuse or overuse, however, can tax renewable resources beyond their ability to recover.

Renewable Resources

The term “renewable resources” is often used interchangeably with “renewable energy.” However, water, soil, wildlife, forests, plants, and wetlands are also types of renewable resources. Renewable energy sources, such as wind energy and hydroelectricity, are mainly derived from solar energy in one form or another. Direct solar radiation is usually converted into heat, which can be used for such purposes as heating homes or water. Solar water heating has been used in the southern United States since at least the early twentieth century. In mild climates such as southern Florida, it can easily furnish all the hot water requirements of a typical home and has been widely used in nations worldwide. In the first decades of the twenty-first century, solar photovoltaic systems and wind power became the fastest-growing renewable energy sectors in the United States and worldwide, accounting for over 13 percent of global electricity supply by the mid-2020s.

Types of Solar Energy

Passive solar heating, at its most basic, is the heating of a building by solar radiation that enters the building through south-facing windows (north-facing in the Southern Hemisphere). A properly designed passive solar home must have sufficient interior heat capacity, usually in the form of concrete floors or walls, to prevent overheating on a sunny day and to store excess heat for release at night. In many parts of North America and Europe, passive solar homes have proved to be economical, because the passive system is part of the house itself (its windows, walls, and floors) and thus adds little or no extra cost. “Passive solar” can also refer to solar water-heating systems that involve no moving parts and consume no electricity. Using local water pressure, cold water flows into a collector, where solar energy heats it; the heated water, which rises to the top of the collector, then flows to a storage tank.

Active solar heating, by contrast, uses air or liquid solar collectors that convert solar radiation into thermal energy, which is stored and distributed using a mechanical system (fans or pumps). Active systems are more complex, cost more, and are more resource-intensive; however, they offer greater efficiency and can be used to retrofit an existing building. Two common types of active solar systems are used to heat water for household use: closed loop, in which a solar collector heats an antifreeze solution, which in turn heats a water tank containing potable water; and open loop, a simpler, less expensive scheme in which potable water is routed through the solar collector to be heated before flowing into the tank.

Direct solar radiation can also be used to produce electricity. Concentrated solar power systems employ an array of mirrors that reflect sunlight onto a collector, where the solar heat is stored or converted into mechanical energy. In the mid-2020s, the capacity of concentrated solar power plants in the United States reached 1,815 megawatts, according to the Solar Energy Industries Association. Ocean thermal conversion, a concept partially tested, generates electricity by exploiting the temperature difference between the warm, solar-heated upper ocean and the colder water below.

Photovoltaic or solar cells are semiconductor devices that generate electricity directly from solar (or other electromagnetic) radiation. Originally developed for artificial satellites after World War II, photovoltaic cells work well and are used to power everything from solar calculators, radios, battery rechargers, and patio lights to electric fences, traffic signal controls, field-deployed scientific monitoring equipment, and corrosion prevention systems on metal bridges. Their price kept them from gaining widespread use for home electricity generation for many years; however, between 2010 and 2020, the average cost of a residential photovoltaic panel fell by more than 60 percent.

Other Renewable Resources

A less direct type of renewable solar energy is hydroelectricity—electricity generated by water turbines that are turned by water flowing down a river or dropping from a dammed water reservoir. The kinetic energy of the moving water is derived from the gravitational potential energy of water at greater heights, and that energy is ultimately derived from solar radiation that evaporated the water from the oceans, allowing it to rain down in the mountains. An older form of water power was the waterwheel used by millers until well into the nineteenth century. Ocean energy, in the form of tidal movement, wave action, and marine currents, is another source of hydropower. Because of the great expense of harnessing tidal energy and the environmental impact on marine life, the tidal power plant that has operated at the mouth of the Rance River in France since 1966 remained the only major facility of its kind until 2011, when the 254-megawatt Sihwa Lake tidal power plant opened in South Korea. Smaller commercial tidal power plants operate in Canada, Russia, China, and Northern Ireland, however, and by 2010, several experimental facilities for producing tide- or wave-generated power were online or under construction around the globe.

Wind energy is also a renewable solar energy resource, because it is the uneven heating of the Earth’s land and water areas by the sun that causes winds. Wind has long been used as an energy source: It powered the sailing ships that explored the globe, and it powered the windmills used in Asia and Europe since the Middle Ages to grind grain and pump water. Since the 1920s, wind turbines have been used to generate electricity in rural areas of the United States. The Global Wind Energy Council reported that in 2024, the generation capacity of the world’s wind power facilities reached more than 1,136 gigawatts.

Geothermal energy is the heat energy produced beneath the Earth’s surface by the decay of naturally occurring radioactive elements. According to a US Geological Survey estimate, if only 1 percent of the thermal energy contained within the uppermost 10 kilometers (6.2 miles) of the planet’s crust could be harnessed, it would provide five hundred times the energy represented by the world’s known oil and gas reserves. While present everywhere beneath the earth’s surface, geothermal energy is commercially exploitable primarily in areas of active or geologically young volcanoes. The western United States accounts for most of the world’s installed geothermal electricity capacity and generation.

Biomass is often defined as the total mass of living organisms in an ecosystem, including both plants and animals, but the term is also used for nonliving biological materials, such as wood from dead trees. The energy stored in biomass is solar energy captured by photosynthesis. Biomass is an important resource not only for human life, because all human food is biomass in one form or another, but also for society in general, because biomass materials can be used as a source of energy and organic chemical compounds, including therapeutic drugs. In 2013, biomass accounted for roughly 24 percent of the total renewable electricity generation (excluding hydropower) in the United States. By the mid-2020s, bioenergy accounted for nearly 55 percent of global renewable energy and 6 percent of the world's total energy supply, according to the International Energy Agency.

Biomass energy resources include solid, liquid, and gaseous fuels. The solid fuels include wood (the major energy resource used in the United States until about 1880) and agricultural wastes such as corn stover (the leaves and stalks left behind after a corn harvest) and sugarcane bagasse (the pulp remaining after juice extraction). These are increasingly being used for industrial electric power generation and home heating. Liquid biomass fuels include methanol and ethanol, both of which can be used in motor vehicle engines. The major gaseous biomass fuel is methane, the main constituent of the fossil fuel called natural gas; methane is generated by the anaerobic (oxygen-starved) decomposition of manure and other organic materials.

Near-Term Projections for Demand in Renewable Resources

According to the World Economic Forum, the installation of renewable energy facilities reached an all-time high in 2021. This trend led many to predict that this would lead to a similar increase in 2022, with sources such as solar power expected to account for most of this increase. The Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 was expected to help accelerate this upswing.

In 2022, growth in renewable energy production slowed primarily due to supply chain disruptions and inflation. Industry projections for 2023 again showed a coming increase in installations of renewable energy production sources; however, this optimism was dampened by the potential for similar complications as existed in 2022. Nonetheless, projections for near-term growth in this part of the energy sector remain encouraging.


Bibliography

"Bioenergy." International Energy Agency, www.iea.org/energy-system/renewables/bioenergy. Accessed 28 Oct. 2025.

Chakrabarti, Satyajit, et al. Renewable Resources and Energy Management: Proceedings of the International Conference on Innovation in Energy Management & Renewable Resources (IEMRE 2022). CRC Press, Taylor & Francis Group, 2023.

"Concentrating Solar Power." Solar Energy Industries Association, seia.org/concentrating-solar-power. Accessed 28 Oct. 2025.

Dawson, Chad P., and John C. Hendee. Introduction to Forests and Renewable Resources. 9th ed., Waveland Press, 2019.

Elliott, David. Renewables: A Review of Sustainable Energy Supply Options. 2nd ed., IOP Publishing, 2020, doi:10.1088/2053-2563/ab327f. Accessed 28 Oct. 2025.

"Energy Data Books." National Renewable Energy Laboratory, 21 Apr. 2025, www.nrel.gov/analysis/energy-data-books. Accessed 28 Oct. 2025.

Graziani, Mauro, and Paolo Fornasiero, editors. Renewable Resources and Renewable Energy: A Global Challenge. 2nd ed., CRC Press, 2012.

Kelly, Regina Anne. Energy Supply and Renewable Resources. Checkmark Books, 2008.

Naseem, Mohammad, and Saman Naseem. International Energy Law. 3rd ed., Kluwer Law International B.V., 2024.

Pimentel, David, editor. Biofuels, Solar, and Wind as Renewable Energy Systems: Benefits and Risks. Springer, 2008.

"Renewable-Energy Development in a Net-Zero World." McKinsey & Company, 28 Oct. 2022, www.mckinsey.com/industries/electric-power-and-natural-gas/our-insights/renewable-energy-development-in-a-net-zero-world. Accessed 28 Oct. 2025.

Rincón Mejía, Eduardo A., and Alejandro De Las Heras. Sustainable Energy Technologies. CRC Press, Taylor & Francis Group, 2018.

“These Four Charts Show the State of Renewable Energy in 2022.” The World Economic Forum, 17 June 2022, www.weforum.org/agenda/2022/06/state-of-renewable-energy-2022. Accessed 28 Oct. 2025.

“2023 Renewable Energy Industry Outlook.” Deloitte, www2.deloitte.com/us/en/pages/energy-and-resources/articles/renewable-energy-outlook. Accessed 28 Oct. 2025.

Wengenmayr, Roland, and Thomas Bührke, editors. Renewable Energy: Sustainable Energy Concepts for the Future. Wiley-VCH, 2008.

Young, Anthony. Land Resources: Now and for the Future. Cambridge UP, 2000.

Full Article

DEFINITION: Natural resources that are capable of replenishing themselves for future use

Nonrenewable resources such as coal, oil, gas, and mineral deposits regenerate themselves too slowly to keep up with human demand; once consumed, they are gone. By contrast, sustainably managed renewable resources can meet current needs and still provide for generations to come. Misuse or overuse, however, can tax renewable resources beyond their ability to recover.

Renewable Resources

The term “renewable resources” is often used interchangeably with “renewable energy.” However, water, soil, wildlife, forests, plants, and wetlands are also types of renewable resources. Renewable energy sources, such as wind energy and hydroelectricity, are mainly derived from solar energy in one form or another. Direct solar radiation is usually converted into heat, which can be used for such purposes as heating homes or water. Solar water heating has been used in the southern United States since at least the early twentieth century. In mild climates such as southern Florida, it can easily furnish all the hot water requirements of a typical home and has been widely used in nations worldwide. In the first decades of the twenty-first century, solar photovoltaic systems and wind power became the fastest-growing renewable energy sectors in the United States and worldwide, accounting for over 13 percent of global electricity supply by the mid-2020s.

Types of Solar Energy

Passive solar heating, at its most basic, is the heating of a building by solar radiation that enters the building through south-facing windows (north-facing in the Southern Hemisphere). A properly designed passive solar home must have sufficient interior heat capacity, usually in the form of concrete floors or walls, to prevent overheating on a sunny day and to store excess heat for release at night. In many parts of North America and Europe, passive solar homes have proved to be economical, because the passive system is part of the house itself (its windows, walls, and floors) and thus adds little or no extra cost. “Passive solar” can also refer to solar water-heating systems that involve no moving parts and consume no electricity. Using local water pressure, cold water flows into a collector, where solar energy heats it; the heated water, which rises to the top of the collector, then flows to a storage tank.

Active solar heating, by contrast, uses air or liquid solar collectors that convert solar radiation into thermal energy, which is stored and distributed using a mechanical system (fans or pumps). Active systems are more complex, cost more, and are more resource-intensive; however, they offer greater efficiency and can be used to retrofit an existing building. Two common types of active solar systems are used to heat water for household use: closed loop, in which a solar collector heats an antifreeze solution, which in turn heats a water tank containing potable water; and open loop, a simpler, less expensive scheme in which potable water is routed through the solar collector to be heated before flowing into the tank.

Direct solar radiation can also be used to produce electricity. Concentrated solar power systems employ an array of mirrors that reflect sunlight onto a collector, where the solar heat is stored or converted into mechanical energy. In the mid-2020s, the capacity of concentrated solar power plants in the United States reached 1,815 megawatts, according to the Solar Energy Industries Association. Ocean thermal conversion, a concept partially tested, generates electricity by exploiting the temperature difference between the warm, solar-heated upper ocean and the colder water below.

Photovoltaic or solar cells are semiconductor devices that generate electricity directly from solar (or other electromagnetic) radiation. Originally developed for artificial satellites after World War II, photovoltaic cells work well and are used to power everything from solar calculators, radios, battery rechargers, and patio lights to electric fences, traffic signal controls, field-deployed scientific monitoring equipment, and corrosion prevention systems on metal bridges. Their price kept them from gaining widespread use for home electricity generation for many years; however, between 2010 and 2020, the average cost of a residential photovoltaic panel fell by more than 60 percent.

Other Renewable Resources

A less direct type of renewable solar energy is hydroelectricity—electricity generated by water turbines that are turned by water flowing down a river or dropping from a dammed water reservoir. The kinetic energy of the moving water is derived from the gravitational potential energy of water at greater heights, and that energy is ultimately derived from solar radiation that evaporated the water from the oceans, allowing it to rain down in the mountains. An older form of water power was the waterwheel used by millers until well into the nineteenth century. Ocean energy, in the form of tidal movement, wave action, and marine currents, is another source of hydropower. Because of the great expense of harnessing tidal energy and the environmental impact on marine life, the tidal power plant that has operated at the mouth of the Rance River in France since 1966 remained the only major facility of its kind until 2011, when the 254-megawatt Sihwa Lake tidal power plant opened in South Korea. Smaller commercial tidal power plants operate in Canada, Russia, China, and Northern Ireland, however, and by 2010, several experimental facilities for producing tide- or wave-generated power were online or under construction around the globe.

Wind energy is also a renewable solar energy resource, because it is the uneven heating of the Earth’s land and water areas by the sun that causes winds. Wind has long been used as an energy source: It powered the sailing ships that explored the globe, and it powered the windmills used in Asia and Europe since the Middle Ages to grind grain and pump water. Since the 1920s, wind turbines have been used to generate electricity in rural areas of the United States. The Global Wind Energy Council reported that in 2024, the generation capacity of the world’s wind power facilities reached more than 1,136 gigawatts.

Geothermal energy is the heat energy produced beneath the Earth’s surface by the decay of naturally occurring radioactive elements. According to a US Geological Survey estimate, if only 1 percent of the thermal energy contained within the uppermost 10 kilometers (6.2 miles) of the planet’s crust could be harnessed, it would provide five hundred times the energy represented by the world’s known oil and gas reserves. While present everywhere beneath the earth’s surface, geothermal energy is commercially exploitable primarily in areas of active or geologically young volcanoes. The western United States accounts for most of the world’s installed geothermal electricity capacity and generation.

Biomass is often defined as the total mass of living organisms in an ecosystem, including both plants and animals, but the term is also used for nonliving biological materials, such as wood from dead trees. The energy stored in biomass is solar energy captured by photosynthesis. Biomass is an important resource not only for human life, because all human food is biomass in one form or another, but also for society in general, because biomass materials can be used as a source of energy and organic chemical compounds, including therapeutic drugs. In 2013, biomass accounted for roughly 24 percent of the total renewable electricity generation (excluding hydropower) in the United States. By the mid-2020s, bioenergy accounted for nearly 55 percent of global renewable energy and 6 percent of the world's total energy supply, according to the International Energy Agency.

Biomass energy resources include solid, liquid, and gaseous fuels. The solid fuels include wood (the major energy resource used in the United States until about 1880) and agricultural wastes such as corn stover (the leaves and stalks left behind after a corn harvest) and sugarcane bagasse (the pulp remaining after juice extraction). These are increasingly being used for industrial electric power generation and home heating. Liquid biomass fuels include methanol and ethanol, both of which can be used in motor vehicle engines. The major gaseous biomass fuel is methane, the main constituent of the fossil fuel called natural gas; methane is generated by the anaerobic (oxygen-starved) decomposition of manure and other organic materials.

Near-Term Projections for Demand in Renewable Resources

According to the World Economic Forum, the installation of renewable energy facilities reached an all-time high in 2021. This trend led many to predict that this would lead to a similar increase in 2022, with sources such as solar power expected to account for most of this increase. The Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 was expected to help accelerate this upswing.

In 2022, growth in renewable energy production slowed primarily due to supply chain disruptions and inflation. Industry projections for 2023 again showed a coming increase in installations of renewable energy production sources; however, this optimism was dampened by the potential for similar complications as existed in 2022. Nonetheless, projections for near-term growth in this part of the energy sector remain encouraging.


Bibliography

"Bioenergy." International Energy Agency, www.iea.org/energy-system/renewables/bioenergy. Accessed 28 Oct. 2025.

Chakrabarti, Satyajit, et al. Renewable Resources and Energy Management: Proceedings of the International Conference on Innovation in Energy Management & Renewable Resources (IEMRE 2022). CRC Press, Taylor & Francis Group, 2023.

"Concentrating Solar Power." Solar Energy Industries Association, seia.org/concentrating-solar-power. Accessed 28 Oct. 2025.

Dawson, Chad P., and John C. Hendee. Introduction to Forests and Renewable Resources. 9th ed., Waveland Press, 2019.

Elliott, David. Renewables: A Review of Sustainable Energy Supply Options. 2nd ed., IOP Publishing, 2020, doi:10.1088/2053-2563/ab327f. Accessed 28 Oct. 2025.

"Energy Data Books." National Renewable Energy Laboratory, 21 Apr. 2025, www.nrel.gov/analysis/energy-data-books. Accessed 28 Oct. 2025.

Graziani, Mauro, and Paolo Fornasiero, editors. Renewable Resources and Renewable Energy: A Global Challenge. 2nd ed., CRC Press, 2012.

Kelly, Regina Anne. Energy Supply and Renewable Resources. Checkmark Books, 2008.

Naseem, Mohammad, and Saman Naseem. International Energy Law. 3rd ed., Kluwer Law International B.V., 2024.

Pimentel, David, editor. Biofuels, Solar, and Wind as Renewable Energy Systems: Benefits and Risks. Springer, 2008.

"Renewable-Energy Development in a Net-Zero World." McKinsey & Company, 28 Oct. 2022, www.mckinsey.com/industries/electric-power-and-natural-gas/our-insights/renewable-energy-development-in-a-net-zero-world. Accessed 28 Oct. 2025.

Rincón Mejía, Eduardo A., and Alejandro De Las Heras. Sustainable Energy Technologies. CRC Press, Taylor & Francis Group, 2018.

“These Four Charts Show the State of Renewable Energy in 2022.” The World Economic Forum, 17 June 2022, www.weforum.org/agenda/2022/06/state-of-renewable-energy-2022. Accessed 28 Oct. 2025.

“2023 Renewable Energy Industry Outlook.” Deloitte, www2.deloitte.com/us/en/pages/energy-and-resources/articles/renewable-energy-outlook. Accessed 28 Oct. 2025.

Wengenmayr, Roland, and Thomas Bührke, editors. Renewable Energy: Sustainable Energy Concepts for the Future. Wiley-VCH, 2008.

Young, Anthony. Land Resources: Now and for the Future. Cambridge UP, 2000.

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