OREANDA-NEWS. On October 05, 2007 Prime Minister Andrus Ansip stated in his energy-related speech at the Public Servants’ Forum, held in Narva, that Estonia has to consider changes in its energy policy. According to the Prime Minister, Estonia basically has four strategic choices, reported the Official website www.valitsus.ee.

“Today’s decisions in energy policy also influence Estonia’s competitiveness and security 10 and 20 years from now,” said Ansip. According to the Prime Minister, our choices include: investing in the renewal of oil-shale boilers; significantly increasing the share of renewable energy; looking towards nuclear energy or starting to import energy in larger volumes, thereby increasing Estonia’s energy dependence. “I personally do not support the last option,” he said, and added that Estonia’s energy dependence is currently one of the smallest in the European Union, nearly three times smaller than that of Latvia.

94 per cent of electricity produced in Estonia is generated from oil shale. “Today, Estonia is able to produce more electricity than we consume,” Ansip said in his speech to public servants. The oil-shale boilers of the Narva Power Plants are obsolete. After 2016 a large amount of production capacity will fall off, which needs to be replaced or renewed. “In my judgement, we should not completely abandon oil shale,” said the Prime Minister, and added that we have to invest significantly more in effective technology and energy-related research and development activities, which the government has already started to do.

In the opinion of the head of government, we cannot choose only one of the four strategic choices. “We have to use all of the solutions, the question concerns their mutual balance,” said Ansip.

In speaking about renewable energy, the Prime Minister reminded the public servants of the fact that the government heads of the EU agreed in the spring that the share of renewable energy will be increased to twenty percent of the final consumption of energy by 2020. “Estonia is very close to achieving this objective,” Prime Minister Ansip said.

In using nuclear energy, we have two real possibilities - joining the Lithuanian or Finnish project. “This decision cannot be made in a rush, the economic profitability of the project should be considered,” said Ansip. According to the Prime Minister, the possibility of nuclear energy should not be feared, because the share of nuclear energy is very high in many countries, for example in France it exceeds 78 percent, and in the case of our neighbour Lithuania – over 70 percent.

To sum up, the Prime Minister admitted that we can significantly improve energy sustainability and use our energy resources more effectively. “Which path Estonia takes depends on whether we chose energy-intensive production areas or focus more on the areas requiring high know-how,” he said.

Today and tomorrow, the Public Servants’ Forum 2007 “Impact of Governance – Facts from Reality” is being held in Narva. The broadcast of the forum will continue tomorrow at 10.00 on the website www.avalikteenistus.ee/foorum.