What makes Estonia unique worldwide? Estonia has become the leading producer of bituminous shale. Partly out of curiosity, and partly to understand how Estonia is coming to terms with a Europe increasingly determined to head the race against time to curb global warming, we flew up there. We drove to the Ida-Viruma region, the last strip of land before Russia. Here the bituminous shale energy industry developed, and here its announced banning risks creating tensions that are not just social but ethnic, given the disproportion between the 80% of Russian-speaking citizens, widely employed in the sector, and the remaining Estonian minority.
Estonia: Burning Stones
