deposit account for just 17% of total deposits in European Union but it generates 90% of its power from oil shale. Oil shale industry in Estonia employs 7,500 people, which is about 1% of national employment, accounting for 4% of its gross domestic product. Mining Oil shale is mined either by traditional underground mining or surface mining techniques. There are several mining methods available, but the common aim of all these methods is to fragment the oil shale deposits in order to enable the transport of shale fragments to a power plant or retorting facility. The main methods of surface mining are open pit mining and strip mining. An important method of sub-surface mining is the room-and-pillar method. In this method, the material is extracted across a horizontal plane while leaving "pillars" of untouched material to support the roof. These pillars reduce the likelihood of a collapse. Oil shale can also be obtained as a by-product of coal mining. The largest oil shale mine in the world is the Estonia Mine, operated by Enefit Kaevandused. In 2005, Estonia mined 14.8 million tonnes of oil shale. During the same period, mining permits were issued for almost 24 million tonnes, with applications being received for mining an additional 26 million tonnes. In 2008, the Estonian Parliament approved the "National Development Plan for the Use of Oil Shale 2008-2015", which limits the annual extraction of oil shale to 20 million tonnes. Power generation Oil shale can be used as a fuel in thermal power plants, wherein oil shale is burnt like coal to drive the steam turbines. As of 2012, there are oil shale-fired power plants in Estonia with a generating capacity of 2,967 megawatts (MW), China, and Germany. Also Israel, Romania and Russia have run oil shale-fired power plants, but have shut them down or switched to other fuels like natural gas. Jordan and Egypt have announced their plans to construct oil shale-fired power plants, while Canada and Turkey plan to burn oil shale at the power plants along with coal. Thermal power plants which use oil shale as a fuel mostly employ two types of combustion methods. The traditional method is Pulverized combustion (PC) which is used in the older units of oil shale-fired power plants in Estonia, while the more advanced method is Fluidized bed combustion (FBC), which is used in the Holcim cement factory in Dotternhausen, Germany, and was