How to Use nonrenewable in a Sentence

nonrenewable

adjective
  • Their sizes range from nine judges to 27, and most judges serve nonrenewable eight-year terms.
    — Henry Gass, The Christian Science Monitor, 4 Aug. 2022
  • The 5-year grants are nonrenewable and are seen as startup funds to help institutions launch their efforts.
    — Jeffrey Mervis, Science | AAAS, 1 Nov. 2019
  • Sunlight and wind are flows, but solar panels and wind turbines are machines made of nonrenewable resources.
    — Bill McKibben, The New York Review of Books, 15 Jan. 2026
  • Now in the last year of his nonrenewable five-year term, the South Korean leader appears to have had a change of heart.
    — Washington Post, 28 Sep. 2021
  • So today our jeans are produced with the help of the cheapest and dirtiest nonrenewable energy sources, mainly coal.
    — Bill McKibben, The New Yorker, 5 May 2021
  • They are made from nonrenewable materials, such as fossil fuels.
    — Veronique Greenwood, Time, 26 June 2026
  • Businesses have moved away from polystyrene, which is made from nonrenewable petroleum, in recent years, but schools have been slower to do so.
    — Philly.com, 13 Feb. 2018
  • To make up the shortfall, Jordan increasingly turned to nonrenewable water sources such as aquifers.
    — Los Angeles Times, 15 Apr. 2021
  • Much of the country’s energy comes from nonrenewable resources that contribute to climate change.
    — WIRED, 30 Sep. 2022
  • Qatar has become one of richest countries in the world thanks to large deposits of oil and natural gas, resources the government knows are nonrenewable.
    — Los Angeles Times, 27 Oct. 2022
  • Any nonrenewable energy use will be offset with afforestation.
    — Washington Post, 20 Jan. 2022
  • Making your house more energy-efficient and less reliant on nonrenewable energy sources should cost less after this bill takes effect.
    — Jessica Roy, Los Angeles Times, 12 Aug. 2022
  • Every step of plastic use, from production to disposal, requires large amounts of nonrenewable energy.
    — Austen Erblat, Sun-Sentinel.com, 13 Apr. 2018
  • The recommendations include initiatives that would reduce the amount of food waste and nonrenewable energy from the school system.
    — Washington Post, 29 Apr. 2022
  • Meanwhile, in New York City, the center’s gallery will close May 31 when its one-year, nonrenewable lease expires.
    — Tamarra Kemsley, The Salt Lake Tribune, 31 May 2022
  • However, Earth only offers up a finite amount of fossil fuels and nonrenewable energy sources.
    — Gideon Kimbrell, Forbes, 4 Oct. 2021
  • Under the Obama administration, these plans were limited to three-month nonrenewable terms.
    — Michael Hiltzik, Los Angeles Times, 16 Aug. 2019
  • Most nitrogen is made from fossil fuels, and many factories have had to stop production as the pandemic and climate policies have raised the price of nonrenewable energy.
    — Bjorn Lomborg, WSJ, 6 May 2022
  • However, many of these resources are finite or nonrenewable, and the extraction of such materials can be harmful to the environment.
    — Expert Panel®, Forbes, 29 Nov. 2023
  • The glassmaking process is energy intensive and relies on nonrenewable resources.
    — Aki Ishida, The Conversation, 10 Sep. 2025
  • In many cases, the electricity used to power the AI data centers today relies on nonrenewable energy sources such as coal or gas.
    — Dana Taylor, USA TODAY, 26 Nov. 2024
  • This nonrenewable element is found deep within the Earth’s crust and is in short supply, according to NBC reports.
    — Omer Awan, Forbes, 10 Nov. 2022
  • Wise leaders a few generations ago had the ingenious idea of turning nonrenewable resources into generational wealth.
    — Anchorage Daily News, 5 Aug. 2022
  • Moreover, glass production requires mining or producing nonrenewable natural resources such as sand, soda ash, lime and fuel.
    — Aki Ishida, The Conversation, 10 Sep. 2025
  • The bill phases out tax credits for solar and wind, often now cheaper than gas or coal, and forces utilities to rely more heavily on existing, expensive and nonrenewable power sources.
    — Mary Whitfill Roeloffs, Forbes.com, 19 Aug. 2025
  • In that case, the city could begin drawing down its nonrenewable water resources, which isn’t sustainable in the long term, legally or physically, according to officials.
    — Austin Corona, AZCentral.com, 12 Nov. 2025
  • In that case, the city could begin drawing down its nonrenewable water resources, which isn’t sustainable in the long term, legally or physically, according to officials.
    — Austin Corona, AZCentral.com, 6 Nov. 2025
  • But helium — a nonrenewable element found deep within the Earth’s crust — is running low, leaving hospitals wondering how to plan for a future with a much scarcer supply.
    — Caroline Hopkins, NBC News, 22 Oct. 2022
  • Dispatchable energy – any type of energy that can be adjusted to fit the needs of the power grid – is often used in reference to both renewable and nonrenewable sources of energy.
    — Rachel McCrea, Baltimore Sun, 10 Mar. 2025
  • What's more, the manufacturing process of most chemical fertilizers depends on nonrenewable resources, such as coal and natural gas.
    — The Editors Of Organic Life, Good Housekeeping, 10 Mar. 2017

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'nonrenewable.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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