Editor in Chief Adam Bruns navigates the numbers from two valuable resources tracking investment projects driven by clean energy momentum and the Inflation Reduction Act’s incentives.
In this archive photo from 2015, Georgia Power transmission linemen work on the 500-kV transmission structures that now support power coming from the newly expanded Plant Vogtle nuclear power plant.
Photo courtesy of Georgia Power
If you’re looking for evidence of the current stress on the U.S. electrical grid, look no further than the data contained in the State of the Markets report released on March 27 by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. A FERC release stated that FERC Chairman Willie Phillips’ top priority in 2024 “is improving the difficult process of planning, siting and paying for interstate electric transmission lines.” At the end of 2023, there were 11,841 active requests from generators seeking to interconnect to the transmission system — a 16% increase compared to the end of 2022, and a quadrupling of the number since 2019, said FERC.
When Porsche opened its U.S. company HQ adjacent to Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport in 2015, it was the largest foreign investment in the company’s history.
Photo courtesy of Porsche
On April 14, Airports Council International (ACI) released its world airport rankings based on the preliminary compilation of the organization’s World Airport Traffic Dataset. Once again, the data showed Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport was the busiest in the world. In 2023, ATL welcomed 104.7 million passengers, marking an 11.7% increase from the previous year and besting the rising profile of second-place Dubai by nearly 18 million passengers.
“ATL’s success is Atlanta’s success and being home to the world’s busiest airport underscores our city’s economic vitality,” said Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens. “It is a testament to our global connectivity and an affirmation of our city’s place on the world stage.”
Site Selection’s coverage of Atlanta’s airport has been as steady as the facility’s stream of passengers over the decades, including this September 2013 piece asking seven governors about the importance of infrastructure. That was the year Porsche committed to locating its U.S. headquarters and testing grounds on a parcel adjacent to the runways that used to be home to a Ford Motor Co. plant.
PHOTO OF THE DAY
Photo of Laurel Forest on Madeira Island by Richard Rocha courtesy of University of Oxford
Yesterday, in case you missed it, was International Bat Appreciation Day. Anyone who’s ever been bitten by insects on a steamy summer evening knows how much bats can help out. So do the European scientists who just published a study in the Journal of Mammalogy about the diet of the island bats living on the island of Madeira (pictured) in Portugal. “We anticipated that all three species would primarily feed on nocturnal butterflies,” said lead study author Angelina Gonçalves of the University of Porto. “However, we did not expect that over 40% of the species detected in the bats’ diet are likely or confirmed agricultural or forestry pests.”
Co-author and University of Oxford Associate Professor Ricardo Rocha added, “An increasing number of farmers are using bat boxes to attract insectivorous bats to their fields.” Work conducted for the study found that “deploying simple artificial bat roosts might lead to win-win outcomes for both conservation and local farmers,” he said.
The Laurisilva, or Laurel Forest, within Madeira Natural Park was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1999 and is believed to be a relic of a previously widespread laurel forest type that covered much of Southern Europe 15 million to 40 million years ago.
