Resources for Dummies

Renewable energy resources

You might have heard that there is no such thing as a stupid question, but face the facts: we all know that isn't true. If questions were arranged on a bell curve, half of then would be below average, so some of them must be stupid. In fact, we know of one... well, it's not really a question, per se, but it's still stupid. The sad thing is that in her Sciencing.com answer, Heather Bliss proved herself pretty much the intellectual equal of whomever wanted a "List of Earth's Resources"...

Back when she called herself Terry Morgan, Bliss opened by misinforming her readers that,

"Earth has many resources for humans to survive and thrive. Some resources, such as water, wind and sun, are abundant and nonrenewable..."

Already Bliss is in a heap of trouble: she's confused resources with energy sources, not to mention that even if the question were about energy sources, both wind and solar energy are considered renewable. Two strikes against Heather already, and she's only 22 words in... but, of course, there's more. There's always more. Here's her definition of nonrenewable resources:

"Nonrenewable resources cannot be replenished through conservation or production effords [sic]. " That's not what "nonrenewable" means, Heather. Nonrenewable resources are those that cannot be replaced once consumed, such as fossil fuels. Other nonrenewable resources that aren't energy-related include building stone and metals. Heather goes on to explain fossil fuels like this: "Fossil fuels are formed in Earth over a period of roughly 300 million years."

We asked the staff geologist, and she has no idea where Bliss came up with that cockamamie number. Yeah, it takes a lot longer than a human lifespan, but 300 million years? If that's the case, how come so much petroleum is sourced from Early Cretaceous rocks 125 million years old, huh?

Bliss went on to completely misunderstand possible uses of switchgrass, claiming that,

"Switchgrass is a fast-growing grass that produces high amounts of thermal energy, called BTUs, when burned."

Her failure to comprehend BTUs of energy notwithstanding, Heather's sole reference on switchgrass says none of that. It's pretty likely that, once again, an eHowian has scraped info from Wikipedia and then slapped some "reference" the site actually allowed at the bottom of her post.

Not only did Bliss wander off on a tangent from her assignment, confusing resources with energy sources, she also got chunks of what she did publish wrong. Can you say, "Dumbass of the Day"? Sure you can...

copyright © 2019-2022 scmrak

SI - RENEWABLES