Quote from: Ultegra134 on Today at 12:07:53 PM

For instance, here in Greece, we have more than 300 days of sunlight per year, it would be great even if solar panels were implemented by companies or individuals themselves.

It does not matter how many days of sun you get but how much of that energy you can harvest, and Greece despite being all sunny and so for tourism it lags well behind a lot of countries by actual potential.
Excluding the Islands, you only get 4 hours on average spread through that day, so you would need to either program all your activities during peak hours or a ton of batteries.

Quote from: The Pharmacist on Today at 04:48:00 AM

I think you're right, but it's amazing to me that in 2021 with all the technology we have at our disposal that we're still very much dependent on oil drilling, refining, and gasoline consumption. Solar technology is definitely available; I just think it's unaffordable for most folks, at least for the initial outlay for solar panels and whatever else is needed to power an average home. I would imagine that once the price comes down for those things (and people wise up to the fact that solar is cheaper and better for the environment), adoption will increase.

Nope, it's math.
Combining with what I've said above, you can't really put all those panels everywhere and that's it.
Europe sucks bigtime at solar potential, Germany has the same numbers as Alaska (no joke), and most of the industrial zone of Europe is on the same page.
So you need to install a ton, invest a ton in batteries only to be hit by a Dunkelflaute and then...what do you do? Not a problem if you live in California but when it's -25C outside like last year, it's a different thing.

And this is what's happening in Europe now, no wind and no sun, winter is near, and all the renewables are dead in the water. Here is the number for energy production for Germany last month.
You can see that solar is near nuclear, but nuclear has a 10GW capacity while germans have installed 50GW of solar panels, and the bill for that is just 30 billion last year and more than 200 since 2010.
Let's add the fact that they have the highest price per kWh in the world at 30 cents/kWh?

No, solar is not cheaper, it's made cheaper by taxing you and subsidizing it.

Quote from: Lucius on Today at 12:55:14 PM

So I wonder what the reasons are for the differences in prices for the same product - maybe the reason is that some countries have higher oil/fuel stocks in tanks so they are not immediately subject to rising oil prices or is it due to competition in the domestic market for oil products, maybe some other reason?

Taxes:
https://www.fuelseurope.eu/knowledge/refining-in-europe/economics-of-refining/fuel-price-breakdown/
0.37 in Romania and 0.73 in Italy. (gasoline, diesel is different)
France actually gets cheaper gas before tax compared to Romania but it ends up costing 0.5 euros more.