Editorial: what to think of yet another club?

Photo: Caro / Scanpix.

Estonia, the integration champion of the region, is still not running out of clubs to join. It was two years back that talks started to enter International Energy Agency (IEA), an independent body founded by Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), dealing with fuel market analysis and emergency reserves regulation, as well as other energy issues. Only OECD-members may join.

Surely, IEA-membership is both useful and needful for Estonia. Often, criticism of regulations «enforced by Europe» is heard in our public space; even so, a closer look will often reveal the prudency of the requirements, as evidenced by long-term experience of states. For instance, IEA demands that members hold strategic stores of liquid fuel – which Estonia has already undertaken to do. 

IEA is a well-respected organisation, its materials and opinions publicised by are carefully followed my economists the world over. A main benefit, opened for Estonia by membership of IEA, will be access to exhaustive databases and analysis on the energy sector. What would trump knowledge in our decisions on energy-future? And, for Estonia, the said decisions will be of indescribable weight.

Regarding Estonia, IEA experts have always underlined three central issues: the unique position of oil shale power energy; as well as energy economy and energy network connections with other countries – the latter having room for development. All this being linked to issues we need to settle in near future.

In August, energy development plan up until 2030 was initiated in the government – with perspectives reaching 2050 considered. This will require stating Estonia’s long-term energy portfolio. In other words: how great an emphasis should be laid on oil shale power? And: how do we produce the rest? Recently, it has been asked how much electricity we would have to produce anyhow – would it not be cheaper to outsource it? What would our «renewable goals» be? How strict will we be with energy economy? Etc. Etc. And surely, with all that, energy dependency and other security related issues will have to be considered.

These are no easy questions; in various issues, public debate is needed. Even so, energy needs need to be planned well into the future – as stations and boilers cannot be built overnight.

The soon-to-open IEA door will help Estonia with quality answers, drawing on energy information and experience of 28 countries.