FUNDAMENTALS OF GEOLOGY

ENERGY & MINERAL RESOURCES

Instructor:
Hossein Fazeli, PhD
Iran University of Science & Technology
Email: [email protected]

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Renewable & Non-renewable Recourses

• Resources are commonly divided into two broad categories: renewable and nonrenewable. Renewable
resources can be replenished over relatively short time spans such as months, years, or decades. Common
examples are plants and animals for food, natural fibers for clothing, and trees for lumber and paper. Energy
from flowing water, wind, and the Sun are also considered renewable.
• By contrast, nonrenewable resources continue to be formed in Earth, but the processes that create them are
so slow that significant deposits take millions of years to accumulate. Examples are fossil fuels (for example,
coal, oil, natural gas) and many important metals (for example, iron, copper, uranium, gold). Some of these
nonrenewable resources, such as aluminum, can be used over and over again; others, such as oil, cannot be
recycled.

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Renewable & Non-renewable Resource

• Occasionally some resources can be placed in either category, depending on how

they are used. Groundwater is one such example. Where it is pumped from the
ground at a rate that can be replenished, groundwater can be classified as a
renewable resource. However, in places where groundwater is withdrawn faster
than it is replenished, the water table drops steadily. In this case, the groundwater
is being “mined” just like other nonrenewable resources.
• Most of the energy and mineral resources we use are nonrenewable.

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Concept checks 37

• Distinguish between renewable and nonrenewable resources.

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Energy Resources: Fossil Fuels

Coal
• Along with oil and natural gas, coal is commonly called a fossil fuel.
• This designation is appropriate because each time we burn coal, we are using energy from the Sun that was
stored by plants many millions of years ago—so we are indeed burning a “fossil.”
• Burning coal produces emissions that adversely influence the environment and human health. Principal
emissions resulting from coal combustion include the following:
• Sulfur dioxide (SO2), Nitrogen oxides (NOx), Carbon dioxide (CO2),

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Energy Resources: Fossil Fuels

• Oil and Gas

• Petroleum and natural gas are found in similar environments and frequently occur together. Both consist of
various hydrocarbon compounds (compounds consisting of hydrogen and carbon mixed together). They may
also contain relatively small quantities of other elements, such as sulfur, nitrogen, and oxygen.

• Like coal, petroleum and natural gas are biological products derived from the remains of organisms. However,
the environments in which they form are very different, as are the organisms. Coal is formed mostly from plant
material that accumulated in a swampy environment above sea level, while oil and gas are derived from the
remains of both plants and animals having a marine origin.

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Energy Resources: Fossil Fuels

• With ever-deeper burial over millions of years, chemical reactions gradually transform some of the original
organic matter into the liquid and gaseous hydrocarbons we call petroleum and natural gas.
• Unlike the organic matter from which they formed, the newly created petroleum and natural gas are mobile.
These fluids are gradually squeezed from the compacting, mud-rich layers where they originate into adjacent
permeable beds such as sandstone, where openings between sediment grains are larger. Because this occurs
underwater, the rock layers containing the oil and gas are saturated with water. Because oil and gas are less
dense than water, they migrate upward through the water-filled pore spaces of the enclosing rocks. Unless
something halts this upward migration, the fluids will eventually reach the surface, at which point the volatile
components will evaporate.

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Energy Resources: Fossil Fuels

• Sometimes the upward migration of oil and natural gas is halted. A geologic environment that allows for
economically significant amounts of oil and gas to accumulate underground is termed an oil trap.
• Several geologic structures may act as oil traps, but all have two basic conditions in common: a porous,
permeable reservoir rock that will yield petroleum and natural gas in sufficient quantities to make drilling
worthwhile, and a cap rock, such as shale, that is virtually impermeable to oil and gas.

• The cap rock halts the upwardly mobile oil and gas and keeps both from escaping at the surface

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Energy Resources: Fossil Fuels

Common oil
traps

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Concept checks 38

• Why are coal, oil, and natural gas called fossil fuels? Do all three form under the same
circumstances?
• What is an oil trap? Sketch two examples.

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Nuclear Energy

• The fuel for these nuclear power plants comes from radioactive materials that release energy through the
process of nuclear fission
• Fission is accomplished by bombarding the nuclei of heavy atoms, commonly uranium-235, with neutrons.

• Uranium-235 is the only naturally occurring isotope that is readily fissionable, and it is therefore the primary
fuel used in nuclear power plants.
• Although uranium is a rare element in Earth’s crust, it does occur in enriched deposits.

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Renewable Energy

• Unlike fossils fuels, which are exhaustible, renewable energy sources regenerate
and can be sustained indefinitely.

• Examples are: solar energy, wind energy, hydroelectric power, geothermal energy,
biomass, tidal power.

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Mineral Resources

• Mineral resources are the endowment of useful minerals ultimately available commercially.
• Resources include already identified deposits from which minerals can be extracted profitably, called reserves,
as well as known deposits that are not yet economically or technologically recoverable.

• the term ore is used to denote useful metallic minerals that can be mined at a profit. In common usage, the
term ore is also applied to some nonmetallic minerals, such as fluorite and sulfur. However, materials used for
such purposes as building stone, road aggregate, abrasives, ceramics, and fertilizers are not usually called ores;
rather, they are classified as industrial rocks and minerals.

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