Renewable resource

From Free net encyclopedia

A renewable resource is any natural resource that is depleted at a rate slower than the rate at which it regenerates. A resource must have a way of regenerating itself in order to qualify as renewable.

Renewable resources include oxygen, fresh water and biomass. However they can become non-renewable if used at a greater rate that the environment's capacity to replenish them. For example ground water may be removed from an aquifer at a greater rate than the sustainable recharge. Removal of water from the pore spaces may cause permanent compaction (subsidence) that cannot be reversed.

Renewable resources may also include commodities such as wood and leather.

Plastics, gasoline, coal, natural gas and other items produced from fossil fuels are nonrenewable because no mechanisms replenish them. The abiogenic petroleum origin theory may be such a mechanism but petroleum is currently being depleted at a rate far exceeding discoveries of fields which could qualify as abiogenic in origin.