ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Oil shale in Estonia

Okay kiddo, so you know how we use oil to make our cars go and other things we need for our daily lives? Well, sometimes we can find oil in the ground, but other times we have to make it in a special way. This is where oil shale comes in.

Oil shale is actually a rock that has a lot of oil trapped inside of it. And in Estonia, there is a big deposit of this rock that people have been using for a long time. They mine it from the ground, crush it up, and then heat it up really hot so that the oil inside starts to come out.

Once the oil is out, people can collect it and use it just like any other kind of oil. The cool thing about oil shale is that there is a lot of it in Estonia, so they have a good supply of oil that they can use for all kinds of things.

But mining and processing oil shale is also really hard work, and it can be expensive, especially if there are environmental concerns. That means that people need to be careful and make sure they are doing things safely and responsibly, so they can keep using the oil shale without causing harm to people or the environment.

So, that's basically what oil shale is and how it's used in Estonia, my little one.