Environmental Impact Assessment for Estonian Oil Shale Mining Environmental Impact Assessment for Estonian Oil

The Estonian economy is strongly based on oil shale as a mined resource, and various quality of oil shale are supplied to power plants and chemical industry. However, the environmental impacts associated with the preparation and production of oil shale. The different mining methods used for oil shale extraction and accompanied development processes have various environmental impacts. In Estonian mining industry practice rarely takes into consideration necessary, essential details causing environmental impacts. Emission per one ton of excavated oil shale from “Estonia” and “Viru” mines and their share in climate change and acidification are presented. Take into account impact category includes ground surface subsidence, land use, mine water pollution. 1.