non-renewable energy resource Non-renewable resources have been built up or evolved over a geological time-span and cannot be used without depleting the stock and raising questions of ultimate exhaustibility, since their rate of formation is so slow as to be meaningless in terms of the human life-span
non-renewable resource A natural resource which, in terms of human time scales, is contained within the Earth in a fixed quantity and therefore can be used once only in the foreseeable future (although it may be recycled after its first use). This includes the fossil fuels and is extended to include mineral resources and sometimes ground water, although water and many minerals are renewed eventually
