Country Review

ESTONIA

Estonia has signed (1998), and ratified (2002) the Kyoto Protocol.

The country has an area of 45,226 sq km (including 1,520 islands in the Baltic Sea).

Estonia’s power system consists of the National Grid (transmission lines over 110 kV) distribution network, and the following power plants: Narva oil shale fired power plants (Eesti PP: 1610 MW; Balti PP: 1290 MW installed capacity), Irvu Thermal Power Plant (190 MW), industrial CHPs (120 MW), wind generator (0.15 MW) and Hydro Power Plants (1.7 MW).

Estonia has very few conventional resources. However, it has important reserves of oil shales: 5 Gt, therefore accounting for 70% of the world’s oil shale production. Estonia has also large areas of peat land (10,000 sq km, or 900 Mt (US DoE FE) - 2 Gt (Enerdata) of peat). 46% of the country are covered with forest.

Oil shale is Estonia’s most important primary energy source. Estonia’s main environmental issues related to energy are air pollution and consequences of oil shale extraction, combustion and deposit of ashes. Further, the extraction of peat from wetlands for use as fuel as well as for export for gardening purposes is threatening wetland habitats. Peat is used for energy purposes as milled peat, sod peat and peat briquettes. In 2001, 5,237,000 t of peat were produced. The total capacity of peat boilers in 2001 was 60 MW, with an average capacity of 1 MW, the total heat production from peat was 164 GWh.

Oil shale may be responsible for as much as 80% of the total harmful emissions in Estonia, when taking into account both its mining and utilization. When oil shale is combusted in a power plant, CO2 is generated not only from the organic carbon, but also from decomposition of the carbonate component of the oil shale as well. The overall carbon emission factor (CEF) for oil shale is about 29 metric tons of carbon per terajoule; without decomposition of the carbonate, the CEF would be about 22 metric tons per terajoule.

CO2 emission in 2000 was 16494 th.tons /100% including 13945 /85 from energy production, 985/6 from transport, 483/3 from industry and 1081/6 from others.