Sometimes seemingly little things can have a big impact. Now I can imagine that the announcement in Germany that they will extend the shopping hours to 24h from Monday-Saturday could indeed help to push private consumption and to further support the already good economy. Being "export world champion", as they call it, private consumption has always lacked that and is at present still pretty "Bescheiden" (modest).

On my trip to Sweden last week I also managed to capture a picture (click here to see mine) of this biogas driven train which stopped in Linköping (2 hours south of Stockholm).

Sweden seems to be heading towards being one of the first countries in the world to be entirely independent of oil imports. The Swedish government wants to achieve that within just ten years from now. Electricity is mainly coming from water energy and nuclear power plants already and now they are also replacing gasoline and diesel with alternative fuels such as biogas. Confiscated alcoholic beverages at the borders (Sweden sees lots of smuggling due to the high taxes on alcohol) are e.g. not just dumped but collected and used to produce biogas. More infos on Sweden's radical measures to become the world's first oil-free nation can be also found here:

- Swedish green car association
- Swedish biogas
- Report on the biogas train
- Government organization in charge of the oil independency project