Natural Resources: Practice Questions

These are original questions written for Marlbridge, for revision and practice on this content. They are not reproduced past-paper questions, and they do not replicate the exam’s exact structure, question count or mark tariffs — examination boards hold copyright in their own papers. Use these alongside the official past papers available free from your board.

Related: Natural Resources revision notes

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Section A

1. Distinguish between renewable and non-renewable resources, giving two examples of each. [4]

2. Define sustainable development. [2]

Section B

3. Compare fossil fuels and renewable energy in terms of reliability, cost, and environmental impact. [6]

4. Explain the advantages and disadvantages of three renewable energy sources. [12]

5. Explain four factors that affect the decision to extract rocks, ores and minerals, and describe the two named biological extraction processes. [10]

6. Explain why a country may continue to rely on fossil fuels despite knowing the environmental costs, giving three reasons. [6]

Section C

7. Explain one advantage and one disadvantage of geothermal energy as a renewable resource. [4]

8. Sustainable resource management strategies are often grouped into four ideas. Name each idea and give one example of each. [8]

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Answers

1. Renewable resources can be replaced naturally within a human lifetime or are effectively unlimited, e.g. solar energy and timber if managed [1] [1]. Non-renewable resources exist in a finite quantity and are used far faster than they form, e.g. coal and iron ore [1] [1].

2. Development that meets the needs of the present [1] without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs [1].

3. Reliability — fossil fuels provide continuous, controllable output on demand, whereas most renewables are intermittent, depending on wind, sunshine or rainfall [1] [1]. Cost — fossil fuel plants have lower construction costs but ongoing and volatile fuel costs; renewables have high initial capital cost but almost no fuel cost, so lifetime costs are increasingly competitive [1] [1]. Environmental impact — fossil fuels emit CO₂, sulfur dioxide and particulates, causing climate change, acid rain and respiratory illness; renewables emit little in operation but have visual, habitat and land-use impacts and require mining for their materials [1] [1].

4. Any three, 4 marks each. Solar — advantages: no emissions in operation and no fuel cost; suitable for remote areas off-grid, and panels can be installed on existing buildings [1] [1]. Disadvantages: generates nothing at night and little in cloudy weather, so storage or backup is needed; high installation cost and large land area for utility-scale farms [1] [1]. Wind — advantages: no emissions and low running costs; land between turbines can still be farmed [1] [1]. Disadvantages: intermittent — no output in calm or very high winds; visual and noise impact, opposition from residents, and a hazard to birds [1] [1]. Hydroelectric — advantages: reliable and controllable, with output adjustable to demand; the reservoir also provides water supply, flood control and irrigation [1] [1]. Disadvantages: very high construction cost and the flooding of large valleys, displacing communities and destroying habitat; sediment is trapped behind the dam, reducing downstream fertility [1] [1]. Biomass — advantages: carbon-neutral in principle if replanted, and uses agricultural and forestry waste [1] [1]. Disadvantages: releases particulates when burned, and growing fuel crops competes with food production for land [1] [1].

5. Factors, any four, 1 mark each: exploration findings, showing whether a deposit is worth pursuing [1]; geology, including how the deposit is structured [1]; accessibility and terrain [1]; the quantity and quality of the deposit (ore grade) [1]; climate [1]; environmental impact assessment findings [1]; supply and demand for the resource [1]; cost and profit, including extraction cost against market price [1]. Biological extraction processes, 3 marks each: phytomining — growing plants on low-grade ore-bearing soil so they absorb metal ions through their roots, then harvesting and burning the plants to recover the metal from the ash [1] [1] [1]. Bioleaching — using bacteria to break down ore and release metal ions into a solution, from which the metal can then be recovered [1] [1] [1].

6. Any three, 2 marks each: existing infrastructure represents an enormous sunk investment — power stations, refineries and distribution networks — which would be costly to abandon before the end of its life [1] [1]. Fossil fuels remain cheaper and more reliable for baseload generation in many countries, and cheap energy supports industrial competitiveness and keeps consumer bills low [1] [1]. Employment and government revenue depend on the industry, so closure carries a heavy political and social cost in mining and oil regions [1] [1]. Renewable capacity cannot be built quickly enough to replace demand, and storage technology is still expensive, so a transition period is unavoidable [1] [1].

7. Advantage: geothermal energy provides continuous, reliable output, unlike solar or wind, because it does not depend on weather conditions [1] [1]. Disadvantage: large-scale electricity generation is only viable in tectonically active areas, where hot rock lies close enough to the surface to be accessed economically, so most countries cannot generate electricity this way at scale — though ground- and air-source heat pumps let any country use geothermal heat for heating regardless of location [1] [1].

8. Use less — reducing consumption through efficiency and conservation, e.g. more efficient appliances or better insulation reducing energy demand [1] [1]. Use again — reusing or recycling materials rather than extracting new resources, e.g. recycling metal and glass, or reusing greywater [1] [1]. Substitute — replacing a non-renewable resource with a renewable alternative, e.g. switching from coal-fired power to wind or solar generation [1] [1]. Restore — actively repairing damaged environments, e.g. replanting forests, rehabilitating mined land, or establishing protected areas [1] [1].

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Where marks are usually lost

• Calling timber non-renewable, or gold renewable because it can be recycled.
• Giving advantages of renewables without their land or intermittency costs.
• Naming only surface and subsurface extraction and forgetting biological extraction as the third method.
• Ignoring the economic and political reasons for fossil fuel dependence.