Electricity BILLS…ooops, it's a cold winter

Most people in Sweden will now have received their electric bills for supply up to end of December – and it's been a real winter!!

 

So just to put some perspective on those Electric Bills, here's the independent statistics on energy prices for EU countries and Sweden ranks quite favourably – including ALL taxes – for the cost per KWh.These are the statistics for January 2010 released on 27th Jan 2010.

 

I am not quite sure how they have got the price as if I compare where I lived in UK to where I live in Sweden, my Swedish price per KWh (including taxes) is about 9% lower than the UK cost.

I am continually amazed at how our supplier, Vattenfall, keep supply coming to us even in appalling weather conditions. Remember, we are out in the forest 17 kms from the nearest shop!! Almost every winter, for at least 11 years, I have emailed or written them congratulating them on a fantastic service in some incredible bad weather conditions. We can so easily take these things for granted – complaining quickly if we are not happy, but not saying 'THANKS' when they have done such a brilliant job to keep us supplied at what, clearly from the statistics above, is a pretty fair price.

Charlie's an angel – episode 4

7 year old Charlie continues upwards with his fund-raising efforts to help people in Haiti – it all started with a bike ride to raise £500

£242,723 

                            $385,000  

                                                   SeK  2,812,000

But sometimes it's not just about the money.Often such a loving spark lights a fire of lovingness,as you can see from these donation comments at Charlie's Just Giving webpage:

 

Some folks just LOVE the snow….

(via)

 

and I am one of them :)

16 hours snowing and still going….winter wonderland

bensin pris/petrol price comparisons

YEEEAAAAHHHH – GO SWEDEN 

Europa bensin priser - 1/20/10
© TCS / Information Web services via MOTORMANNEN.se

 

95 oktan    (all valuta in Euro)   per litre                        

Sverige:     1.24

Storbrittania  1.27
(united Kingdom)

Portugal       1.28

Italia              1.31

Frankrike  1.32

Belgien      1.33

Danmark    1.35

Finland       1.36

Norge         1.48

Nederland   1.49

And the absolute cheapest bensin is at 0.566 in....Russia.

Blizzard…. :)

We're now in the middle of a high-winded blizzard that's dropped around 50 cms (18 inches) of snow on us in the last 7 hours. Beautiful :):)

Quality of life environment…..

The 2010 Environmental Performance Index (EPI) ranks 163 countries on 25 performance indicators tracked across ten policy categories covering both environmental public health and ecosystem vitality. These indicators provide a gauge at a national government scale of how close countries are to established environmental policy goals. The EPI’s proximity-to-target methodology facilitates cross-country comparisons as well as analysis of how the global community is doing collectively on each particular policy issue.

 

YEEEAAAAHHHH – GO SWEDEN

The EPI Environmental Performance Index from Yale and Columbia Universities – click here for more