Around the Web: Energy Circle's Hand-Picked Links, Chosen Especially for Energy Efficiency Pros.

How Energy Efficiency Will Save Our Climate, and Our Economy.

Upgrading 40% of our country’s residential and commercial buildings would create 625,000 jobs, spark $500 billion in new investments, and generate savings of up to $64 billion a year. (From Grist)

Dilbert’s Troubles Building a Green Home.

Scott Adams, creator of the cartoon character Dilbert, wrote a highly entertaining piece for the Wall Street Journal this week about the complexities of building a green home. We might take issue with a few points (see, for example, Allison Bailes’ response here), but the piece effectively highlights some of our industry’s challenges moving forward. (From WSJ)

Understanding Radiant Barriers: What They Are, What They Aren’t.

Radiant barriers are a great product, particularly in warm climates, for cutting energy costs by reducing a building’s cooling load. But they aren’t an effective alternative to real insulation, and shouldn’t be marketed as such. (From Energy Vanguard)

Do LEED-H Clarifications Raise More Questions than they Answer?

Carl Seville, the Green Curmudgeon, makes the case LEED for Homes standards are impossibly complicated, and that in trying to address the problems this raises, the USGBC is simply “arranding deck chairs on the Titanic.” (From Green Building Advisor)

35 Prime Candidates for Energy Retrofits.

From the fun department: these abandoned buildings would be prime opportunities for home performance upgrades. (From Urlesque, via Demand Side Solutions)

U.S. Energy Use Down; Energy Efficiency Down, Too.

Research from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory show that the U.S. used less energy in 2009 than in 2008, but that energy efficiency has declined as well. (From The Energy Collective)

A Payback Calculator for Insulation Retrofits.

A new tool at Green Building Advisor calculates estimated savings of planned insulation upgrades. (From Green Building Advisor)

ReCurve Gets New CEO, Retrofits Its Business Strategy.

ReCurve, one of the nation’s largest providers of home energy efficiency services, is shifting its focus completely to software, with a subsidiary company to focus on residential work some time in the future. (From Green Tech Media)

Home Performance Blog of the Week:

Sound Home Performance.

Sound Home Performance is a subsidiary of Puget Sound Solar, one of Seattle's premier solar contracting companies. Having expanded into the home performance sector after recognizing the importance of efficiency, the group has launched a blog focusing on policy and opportunities for homeowners. They're still ramping up, but we'll look forward to hearing their voice in the days ahead.