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These resources are naturally replaced in a relatively short period of time.
What are renewable resources?
These resources are not naturally replenished (at least, not on a human timescale).
What are non-renewable resources?
Food is this for your body as gasoline or electricity is this for a car.
What is fuel?
Watermills are an ancient way to capture energy from running water, but the most common modern source of this type of energy is dams.
What is hydroelectric?
Due to radioactive fuel and toxic waste, plants that use this method to create power are most notable when they go wrong, like in Three Mile Island and Chernobyl.
What is nuclear fission?
There are two varieties of this type of energy, one of which comes from breaking these bonds and one that comes from forming them.
What is nuclear?
This type of energy can be captured in specially constructed panels. While it is an abundant source of energy for equatorial areas, it may not be so available in cloudy or mountainous regions.
What is solar?
Left behind in prehistoric times, these are organic remains that have undergone such severe changes due to heat and pressure that they’re unrecognizable. You won’t find these on display in a paleontology museum!
This is an equation, expressed as a percentage, of how much usable energy a device actually uses to perform its work, and how much is wasted.
What is efficiency?
Literally meaning “living stuff,” any living material can be burned as this type of fuel.
What is biomass?
These compounds, which have many uses in plastics, cosmetics, fertilizers, medications, machinery, and more, are created through a process called ‘cracking.’ Despite a nearly infinite number of uses, the most commonly-known of these types of compounds are fuels like butane, propane, and gasoline.
What is petrochemical?
There are currently attempts to create this type of power plant in France and China, but the most common place to find this energy source is in stars like our sun, where large numbers of small atoms collide and can combine.
What is nuclear fusion?
Iceland is home to many naturally occurring hot springs, and gets most of its commercially-available energy and heat from this source.
What is geothermal?
This chemical process involves a substance rapidly reacting with oxygen and releasing heat, often resulting in a flame.
What is combustion?
This law of energy states that energy can never be created or destroyed, only changed between forms. This term is also used by environmentalist organizations trying to protect the environment from pollution, deforestation, over-mining, or other human endeavors.
What is conservation?