Oil Shale Energy Has a Future
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TalTech, Head of Department of Energy Technology
I am neither a politician nor an entrepreneur, but I am a qualified engineer and a professor. Moreover, I hold one of the eight technology professorships formed in the public interests in Tallinn University of Technology, the Professorship of Oil Shale Technology. And speaking as a scientist, I would like to see Estonia consider and assess new approaches to using oil shale in our energy sector. Why?
Whether we view the issue from the perspective of Estonia’s energy security, achieving climate goals, or circular economy, oil shale energy has its place. Particu-larly if we appreciate the energy security and price guarantee that oil shale offers. As an added bonus, we can produce materials and chemicals with the environmental impact that we find acceptable. This would allow us to refrain from opening new quarries, thus reducing our ecological footprint. What’s more, by using sta-te-of-the-art technologies to capture CO2, we could in certain circumstances achieve negative CO2 emissions. Estonia should contribute to the research and development of CCUS technologies. Not only would this drive technological progress forward but it would also create opportunities for us to sell our knowledge and technology to third countries, who have declared that they would continue using fossil fuels until 2060, if not beyond.