WildNWeirdies – Germans Are Stocking Up On Candles, Here’s Why

It’s a great time to be a candlemaker in Germany. “Candle demand is very strong right now,” says Stefan Thomann, Technical Director of the European Candle Manufacturers Association.

The candle boom began during the pandemic, after the government imposed lockdowns and Germans began spending a lot more time at home. The industry expected the boom to end once the nation opened back up, Thomann says. “But then the war (in Ukraine) started.”

Prior to Russia’s invasion, Germany was getting more than half of its natural gas from Russia. It was Russia’s biggest natural gas customer in the European Union, and many Germans used this gas to heat their homes, generate electricity, and power their factories.

After the war started, though, Germany began reducing its imports of Russian natural gas. But the German economy was pretty dependent on Russian gas, and politicians were reluctant to completely cut off the flow.

However, this summer, Russia cut gas flows to Germany, claiming a major gas pipeline in the Baltic Sea needed maintenance work. Then, in September, parts of that same pipeline mysteriously exploded. Officials are still debating how and why that happened. Whatever the reason, the spigot of Russian gas into Germany has now been shut off almost completely.

Germany is now on a mission to transform its energy economy and reduce its gas consumption. The nation is making real progress on that front.

The German government has been working to reduce gas consumption and diversify its energy supply. Early this fall, it enacted new measures aimed at reducing gas demand and helping Germany make it through the winter, when power use is higher. Germans are now being encouraged to do things like use less hot water; switch off the lights on advertising billboards past 10pm, and on public monuments; turn off the heat in private swimming pools; and lower the temperature in many public buildings.

In a study published earlier this year, Kuhn and his colleagues analyzed Germany’s natural gas economy. They concluded that, if the nation could reduce its gas demand by about 20% and successfully shift where its natural gas came from, the country could probably make it through this winter without major power outages.

And that’s exactly what Germany has been working to do. Instead of getting gas from Russia, Germany is now getting gas from places like the Netherlands, Norway, Belgium, Qatar and the United States. And it’s building new infrastructure to increase the flow of natural gas from these and other non-Russian sources.

Germany has also worked to diversify its energy consumption away from natural gas. Germans are increasingly turning to solar energy. It’s also resorted to using more coal to offset its reduced imports of natural gas.