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Robert Schumann loads his charcoal stove with wooden bricks to heat his home in Berlin on December 1, 2021 (AFP / John MACDOUGALL)
A few thousand individuals still heat themselves with a charcoal stove in Berlin, a technique from another era doomed to be extinguished in a Germany which has just endowed itself with a government with great ambitions in terms of climate.
“There may still be 5 to 6,000 homes that are still heated with coal. But the chimney sweeps do not have an official figure”, explains Peter Engelke, co-head of Hans Engelke Energie.
This family business is one of the last in the capital to still deliver black charcoal briquettes to individuals.
Alban Nikolai Herbst charges his charcoal stove in his Berlin apartment on December 14, 2021 (AFP / John MACDOUGALL)
Despite the harmfulness of charcoal for the environment and the dust which infiltrates everywhere in his apartment, including his vinyl records, Alban Nikolai Herbst remains attached to his oven and his black nuggets, for somewhat “sentimental” reasons.
Freshly arrived in Berlin in 1994, four years after reunification, he rediscovers in the streets this smell which had disappeared in the cities of the west for decades while coal heating was common in the ex-Communist GDR. “It smelled like in my childhood,” recalls this writer.
And then this “heavy heat” which emanates from his stove is adapted to his professional situation. “I am always sitting at my desk, I work from 6 in the morning to sometimes 10 in the evening”, he assures.
Robert Schumann, a graphic designer living in his apartment in Prenzlauer Berg, in the old eastern part of the city, still uses his tiled stove to heat his home but has dropped the charcoal for the wooden bricks.
“It’s more ecological, generates less ash, and it is a sustainable energy because trees grow back,” he said, unlike fossil fuels extracted from the earth.
An employee of the company Hans Engelke Energie unloads his delivery of coal intended for individuals in Berlin, December 3, 2021 (AFP / John MACDOUGALL)
The new German government formed by the Social Democrats, the Greens and the Liberals has made the fight against global warming a priority.
He has announced that he wants to accelerate the energy transition and now wants to phase out coal in 2030.
A challenge for the company Hans Engelke Energie. It has already had to diversify over the years to survive and now delivers mainly fuel oil and wood pellets.
“We also sell electricity and gas”, explains Peter Engelke, and “we hope to be able to prosper for a long time to come”.
raph-ilp / smk / cn
© 2021 AFP
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