The Geography of

Natural Resources
Chapter 5
What Is a Natural Resource?
 Anything from nature that people use and
value
 Not naturally occurring – depends upon
cultural perception
Resource Characteristics
 Defined by cultural values
 What is used and valued by people
 Cultural knowledge and awareness of possible value
Resource Characteristics
 Defined by available technology
 Ability to find, extract, move , process and use the
material
Resource Characteristics
 Defined by economics
 Cost and demand
 Demand price versus resource costs
 Cost of use versus cost of alternatives
Natural Resources
 Nonrenewable resources
 Nonliving materials -- metals
 Finite in supply
 Fossil fuels
 Natural gas, oil, coal
 Renewable resources
 Living
 Infinite, inexhaustible
 Replaced continually
 Air, wind, water, solar
Fig. 5.3
Energy Quality and Efficiency
 Energy quality – ability of energy to do
useful work

 Energy efficiency – energy input versus

energy output
Energy Resources
 Fossil fuels
 Synthetic fuels
 Nuclear fuels
 Renewable fuels
Fig. 5.5
Fossil Fuels
 Oil, natural gas, coal
 Stored energy created over millions of years of
decay of plants and animals
 Nonrenewable – why?
 Environmental pollution
 Main energy source for U.S. and world
Oil
 2/3 of oil reserves in Middle East
 Middle East -- #1 in oil exports, oil production
and oil reserves
 North America and Europe have highest per
capita oil consumption rates (3/4)
 Very flexible in its uses
 Relatively easy and cheap to move
 Nonrenewable; pollution problems
Fig. 5.6
Fig. 5.7
Fig. 5.8
Natural Gas
 Efficient, versatile, burns cleanly
 Mostly for industrial and residential heating
 Flows easily and cheaply by pipeline
 Liquefied natural gas (LNG)
 Liquefied by refrigeration for storage or transport
 Russia and the Middle East contain 2/3 of the
world’s proved reserves
Fig. 5.12
Fig. 5.11
Coal
 Very large world supplies
 China and the U.S. are dominant producers
 Electric power generation, coke for steel
production, home heating and cooking
 Bulky and not as easily transported as oil
 Environmentally dirty
 Dirty to handle
 Lots of pollution
Fig. 5.9
Synthetic Fuels
 Oil shale
 Sedimentary rock rich in organic material (kerogen)
 Extracted and converted into a crude oil by distillation
 Enormous world reserves
 Rich deposits in Green River Formation (CO, UT, WY)
 Tar sand
 Sand and sandstone saturated with heavy oil
 Mined, crushed, and heated to extract petroleum
 Major deposits in Alberta
 Monetary and environmental costs
 Inefficient and nonrenewable
Fig. 5.13
Fig. 5.14a
Nuclear Energy
 Nuclear fission
 Controlled splitting of a uranium atom to release
energy
 About 20% of electricity in the U.S.
 No new plants ordered in the U.S. since 1979
 High costs, safety concerns, lack of safe storage for
radioactive waste, potential terrorist targets, nonrenewable
 Nuclear fusion
 Combining atoms of hydrogen to release energy
 Technological problems
 Tremendous potential if overcome - renewable
Fig. 5.15
Fig. 5.16
Renewable Energy Resources
 Biomass fuels
 Solar energy
 Hydropower
 Wind power
Biomass Fuels
 Energy from organic material produced by
plants, animals, or microorganisms
 Wood
 Source of most biomass energy
 Key source of energy in developing countries
 Ethanol
 Alcohol produced from plants
 Brazil: ethanol derived from sugarcane
 U.S.: most ethanol derived from corn
 Waste
 Fermenting crop residues, animal and human refuse
Hydropower
 Flowing water drives turbines
 Location-specific
 About 7% of electricity in the U.S.
 Vast majority of electricity in Pacific Northwest
 Environmental and social costs
 Reservoirs flood land, alter streamflow patterns,
trap silt
 Displacement of people, disruption of ecosystems
Fig. 5.18
Solar Energy
 Inexhaustible and nonpolluting
 Ultimate origin of most forms of utilized energy
 Chief drawback: diffuse and intermittent
 Hot water and space heating
 Electricity generation
 Converting solar energy into thermal energy
 Photovoltaic (PV) cells
 Convert solar energy directly into electrical energy
Fig. 5.20
Wind Power
 Windmills can turn turbines directly, do not use
any fuel, can be built rather quickly
 Technological advances in design
 Lowered cost of electricity generation
 California dominated development in 1980s
 Since then, growth in other states and Europe
 Chief disadvantage: unreliable and intermittent
 Aesthetic impact, hazard to birds
Fig. 5.22a
Soil
 Dynamic, porous layer of mineral and organic
matter
 Formed by physical and chemical decomposition
of rock material and decay of organic matter
 Principal components of soil
 Rocks and rock particles
 Humus
 Organisms
 Water from rainfall
 Air
Soil Characteristics
 5 factors that affect soil properties
 Climate
 Parent material
 Biological activity
 Topography
 Time

 Soil horizons
 Layers of substances found in soils
Community Succession
 Succession
 Climax Community
Major Vegetation Regions
 Forest
 Tropical rainforest
 Temperate (midlatitude) forests
 Broadleaf versus needleleaf forests
 Deciduous versus evergreen (coniferous)
Fig. 5.38
Tropical Rain Forests
 Millions of acres are cleared every year
 Brazil has the largest area of tropical rain forests
 One of the highest rates of clearing
 Policy of developing the Amazon Basin
 Global concerns about clearing tropical forests
 Oxygen and carbon balance
 Contribution to air pollution and climate change
 Loss of biological diversity
Major Vegetation Regions
 Forest
 Tropical rainforest
 Temperate (midlatitude) forests
 Broadleaf versus needleleaf forests
 Deciduous versus evergreen (coniferous)
 Grassland – savanna, prairie, steppe
 Pyrophytes
 Desert - xerophytes