Understanding the Secondary and Tertiary Sectors: Energy Sources, Industry Classification, and Tertiary Activities

The Secondary Sector

The secondary sector transforms raw materials and natural resources into semi-finished or processed products.

The Tertiary Sector

The tertiary sector provides services to people and other economic sectors.

Balance of Payments

The balance of payments includes all the country's monetary transactions, such as goods, services, and capital.

Balance of Trade

The balance of trade is the difference in value between the goods that the country exports and the goods it imports.

Energy Sources

Non-renewable energy sources:

• Coal: fossil rock currently used for thermal production
• Natural Gas: it is used as fuel, for electricity and thermal generation, and in the chemical industry
• Oil: fossil material with important uses, such as electricity generation
• Nuclear Energy: it relies on the use of enriched uranium to release an enormous amount of energy

Renewable energy sources:

• Solar: also called photovoltaic. It uses solar radiation to generate electricity and heat
• Hydroelectric: it is a traditional and renewable energy. It uses the force of passing water to activate an electric generator
• Wind: uses the force of the wind to generate electricity. It's not polluting, but turbines can have a lot of environmental impact
• New energy sources: geothermal energy uses heat from inside the earth

Challenges for the Industry

The industrial sector faces many challenges. Among them, we can point out:

• The political, social, economic, and environmental effects of industrial relocation and the new division of labor
• The progressive deindustrialization of traditionally industrialized countries and the economic dependence of the services sector
• The need to reconvert traditional industries and non-renewable energy sources into more efficient ones
• Overexploitation of industrial and energetic raw materials

Tertiary Activities

• Road transport (cars, motorcycles, short transports, and the most commonly used)
• Rail transport (AVE, medium or long transports, very fast but expensive)
• Air transport (airplanes, it is fast, safe, expensive, and pollutes the air)
• Maritime transport (for long distances, to transport food, it is very slow and cheap)

Industry Classification

• Basic or Heavy Industries: they transform raw materials into semi-finished products
• Equipment Goods Industries: semi-finished products for their activities
• Consumer or Light Industries: they produce goods directly for the consumer market

Ways to classify industrial companies:

• Size: small (less than 50 employees), medium (51 - 250 employees), or large (more than 251 employees)
• Organization: can be individual (owned by a person) or collective (the company is shared among shareholder partners)
• Capital: they can be public (if the state provides capital and manages it) or private (if capital and management are private)

The Tertiary Activities: Tourism

Positive effects: are that it may be a large source of income for the host countries as it boosts the economy and creates jobs. It also stimulates other economic sectors such as construction and leads to improved infrastructures and means of transport

Negative effects: are that it leads to higher prices, promotes land speculation, enriches large companies, and creates many unskilled and poorly paid jobs