Zuckersteuer

July 22, 2009 By Leave a Comment

This podcast also talks about Pfeffersteuer (pepper tax) and Schokoladensteuer (chocolate tax).

Zuckersteuer was a tax in Germany on sugar.  The tax was originally introduced in Prussia in 1841 – one year after the sugar cube was invented.  Sugar had become more popular in previous years following the introduction of the sugar beet.

The tax was discontinued at the end of 1992.

To hear a simple explanation and a short discussion in German, listen to the podcast:

(Press the “play” button to listen to the podcast)

Download the MP3 file | Subscribe to the podcast

Filed Under: German Words Explained, Podcasts, Tax Tagged With: , , , ,

A lorry powered by… chocolate?

January 8, 2008 By Leave a Comment

It sounds (or should that be tastes?) too good to be true. Yes, it really is a lorry powered by chocolate. Well, almost.

I came across this story on the BBC News website and it sounds like a crazy, also an innovative idea.

Put quite simply: the waste left over from cocoa when making chocolate is being recycled into bio-diesel. To make people aware of the project, the lorry is being driven from the UK quite literally to Timbuktu.

Why do I like this project? Well, since I started following news items about biofuels I have probably seen as many arguments against them as I have seen in favour of them.

This project seems to defeat most of the arguments against them: nothing is being grown especially to make the fuel, no trees are being chopped down.  The only question remaining is: does it take more or less energy to process the waste into bio-diesel than it did to process it before?

Filed Under: Bio-Ethanol Tagged With: ,

Please click on ACCEPT to give us permission to set cookies [more information]

This website uses cookies to give you the best browsing experience possible. Cookies are small text files that are stored by the web browser on your computer. Most of the cookies that we use are so-called “Session cookies”. These are automatically deleted after your visit. The cookies do not damage your computer system or contain viruses. Please read our privacy information page for more details or to revoke permission.

Close