Renewable or not: coal and wind
1 min 37 s. The words are spoken and shown in the picture; the player can also show them as subtitles.
For the Earth and Space Sciences Regents. Topic: Resource use and conservation, with the past questions on it.
What Dr. Mars says (the words of the video)
Why can coal run out, but not the wind?
Dr. Mars holds a small wind turbine still.
He lets go, and the wind turns it.
A renewable resource is replaced within a human lifetime.
Heat from the Sun keeps making new wind.
Coal is burned in power plants.
The pile gets smaller and does not grow back.
Coal formed from swamp plants, buried for millions of years.
Heat and pressure changed peat into coal.
We burn coal much faster than it forms.
So coal is a nonrenewable resource.
Coal and natural gas are fossil fuels.
They formed from ancient life over millions of years.
Dr. Mars finds natural gas on the New York map.
Reference Tables, page nine: Energy and Mineral Resources.
Large gas fields lie in western New York, near Lake Erie.
Small gas fields are spread farther east.
Check yourself! Which resource is renewable: A, B, or C?
Which one is replaced within a human lifetime?
Answer: C! Heat from the Sun keeps making new wind.
Dr. Mars's turbine kept turning. Coal and gas take millions of years.
Dr. Mars. Free practice for the New York Earth and Space Sciences Regents.