These are so expensive, you'd think nobody really wants to save the world.

OK, this is an old, old idea of mine that I have never been able to act on.

Now, wise men...wiser men than me anyway...advise to, whenever possible, spend your money on investments that will make money on their own. This is the same idea of saving or investing money. I love this idea....it's so simple and logical and so much common sense.

At the Burrow, one of the biggest expenses is our energy bill. It is bigger than our car bills, bigger than insurance bills, bigger than tax bills. It is the second largest expense, behind only the mortgage and food...if I could just get these people to stop eating....

So anything that I could do to dig into the enormousness of that gargantuan bill, it would be awesomesauce. It would make life so much better! I would reduce my "carbon footprint" which I'm pretty damn sure is way, way large.

This is cheaper, but not nearly as effective.

But more important that saving the world in the short term is saving a significant amount of cash.

I'm very interested in using three different kinds of green technologies. Solar panels, wind turbines and geothermal....unless I can figure out how to use hydrogen power....but I've seen the Hindenberg footage...so I'm leery.

I'd love to cover the roofs of both the Burrow proper and the garage...that's a lot of square footage...with solar panels and place turbines at the peaks of each roof...the question is, how much energy would this produce? How much would that reduce the energy bill? How much would it cost to do? How many batteries would I have to buy to hold all of that energy? Is there still legislation that forces local energy companies to buy my excess energy?

The problem is the cost of batteries and the cost of panels. It would take roughly $20K to "Solarize" my house. At $200 savings a month, approximately, it would take a little over eight years to break even...if I could average $200 savings...and the panels are only believed to have a 20 year lifespan...

A few years ago setting up geothermal heating...which has a system planted about 10 feet underground in the backyard...ran about $15K...again with the potential savings vs cost...this seems difficult to justify...

It is incredibly frustrating that all of the things you're supposed to be able to do to save money and the earth seem to cost so much. Take the Chevy Volt...designed to be almost completely electrical, saving on fuel costs, but priced at roughly $10K more than other comparable vehicles.

I'm not a conspiracy theorist...but it sure smells like a conspiracy.