Save the Planet?

I am no sandal wearing hippie but I like to do my part to save the planet. Little things like turning off lights, using CFL bulbs, opening a window instead of AC, etc. I have started doing some renovations around the house so I thought I could get some more modern efficient items, things like a tankless water heater or maybe even some solar panels so I started looking online. I quickly found out why no one is interested in conservation. For example, the tankless water heater I would need for my house will cost about $600 MORE than the largest tank heater I can buy, plus the install costs almost twice as much. A typical summer gas bill for me is $20 (which includes clothes dryer, stove, oven, hot water, etc) but for easy math lets assume all $20 is from hot water. Now lets also assume a new tankless heater will use $0 per month in gas. That would be 2 and a half years just to break even on the hardware. Realistically, its probably $10-15, I'll use $10. SO the tank will use $10 gas per month and the tankless will use, maybe $2 (the are more efficient) so that is $8 savings a month which means in 6 and a quarter years I will break even on the hardware and I can start in on the extra install costs. I thought maybe that was a bad example so I looked at solar power. I dug up an old electric bill to see how much I used and what it cost. For some reason I have 2 meters so I will just use the main one that seems to be hooked up to everything but the AC. This month I used 932 KWH, costs including service charges and taxes were $105.64 so that is 11.3 cents per KWH. My daily average is 30 KWH a day. To give you an idea how bad AC is I used 10 KWH per day on AC and it was only running for maybe 2 weeks out of the month. OK so I looked up some solar panels and realized the price varies wildly so I settled on an inexpensive unit for my example. This setup makes up to 7.7 KW per day and costs $10,000 (plus installation). First lets assume we will always get the full 7.7 (which wouldn't happen due to clouds, rain, snow, etc.) in fact, lets round it to 8KW a day. 8x11.3 cents is a whopping 90 cents a day savings, that will take a little over 30 YEARS just to break on the hardware and that is under perfect conditions, I doubt the panels would even last that long. Just about everything I looked at was the same way. Wind power, extra insulation, high efficiency appliances, LED lights, hybrid cars, the list goes on and on. I am happy to do my part but there is no way I am going to spend $100 to save $5, that is just stupid. I would even be willing to spend $60 to save $50 because there are other benefits like less pollution, less fossil fuels used etc. but. . .

To be fair to the hippies, there are tax credits on some items to make the cost a little easier but still no where near enough to make it worthwhile to the average Joe. Also, there are a few things we can all do to help out like turning off lights, turning off water (fixing drips), making your heat maybe 1 degree colder in the winter, carpooling. But as for the big things, I think I'll pass.