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Which US state produces the most carbon-free power?

Tennessee was named one of the top 10 states in the US that produces carbon-free power.

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When your history on rooted on resilience and determination, on grit and hard work, you’ll have no problem being the first to get up, to volunteer, to go forward. In Tennessee, we put that pioneering spirit into everything we do.

Tennesseans pay second-lowest share of income in state and local taxes of any state according to a new study by HireHelper that compared taxes in all 50 states.

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The amount paid by the typical Tennessean in state and local taxes totaled $2,694 in 2018, which was was 44.4% lower than the national average and the lowest of any state.

The typical Tennessean paid 5.7% of income in property, sales and other state and local taxes, compared with a national average of 8.9% of personal income going for such taxes.

Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee said he is proud of the recognition as a low-tax state and insisted taxes can be kept low “while maintaining a high level of service” to Tennessee taxpayers.

The conservative Nashville think tank the Beacon Group credits Tennessee’s low tax burden for its above-average economic growth rate in recent years.

“There is a reason Tennessee is one of the fastest-growing states in the country and people from Illinois, New York, California, and others are fleeing here,” said Ron Shulis, Beacon’s policy director. “Tennessee’s commitment to low taxes and reasonable regulations has created an economic environment that is attractive to both businesses and workers.”

In the quest for advanced vehicles with higher energy efficiency and ultra-low emissions, Oak Ridge National Laboratory researchers are accelerating a research engine that gives scientists and engineers an unprecedented view inside the atomic-level workings of combustion engines in real time.

The new capability is an engine built specifically to run inside a neutron beam line. This neutronic engine provides a unique sample environment that allows investigation of structural changes in new alloys designed for the environment of a high-temperature, advanced combustion engine operating in realistic conditions.

ORNL first unveiled the capability in 2017, when researchers successfully evaluated a small, prototype engine with a cylinder head cast from a new high-temperature aluminum-cerium alloy created at the lab. The experiment was the world’s first in which a running engine was analyzed by neutron diffraction, using the VULCAN neutron diffractometer at the Department of Energy’s Spallation Neutron Source, or SNS, at ORNL.

The results of the research, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, not only proved the hardiness of the unique alloy, but also demonstrated the value of using non-destructive methods such as neutrons to analyze new materials.

Neutrons are deeply penetrating even through dense metals. When neutrons scatter off atoms in a material, they provide researchers with a wealth of structural information down to the atomic scale. In this case, scientists determined how the alloys perform in operating conditions such as high heat and extreme stress or tension to identify even the smallest defects.

The experiment’s success has prompted ORNL to design a purpose-built research engine at industry-relevant scale for use in VULCAN. The capability is based on a two-liter, four-cylinder automotive engine, modified to operate on one cylinder to conserve sample space on the beamline. The engine platform can be rotated around the cylinder axis to give maximum measurement flexibility. The engine is custom designed for neutron research, including the use of fluorocarbon-based coolant and oil, which improves visibility into the combustion chamber.

The capability will provide researchers with the experimental results they need to quickly and accurately vet new materials and improve high-fidelity computational models of engine designs.

“Around the world, industry, national labs and academia are looking at the interface between turbulent combustion that happens in the engine, and the heat transfer process that happens through the solid components,” said Martin Wissink, lead of the project at ORNL. “Understanding and optimizing that process is really key to improving the thermal efficiency of engines.”

“But currently, most of these models have almost no in situ validation data,” he added. “The objective is to fully resolve stress, strain, and temperature in the entire domain over all the metal parts in the combustion chamber.”

The engine has been designed to ORNL specs and is currently undergoing final development with the Southwest Research Institute, and will be commissioned at DOE’s National Transportation Research Center, or NTRC, at ORNL before its first use at SNS, which is expected by late 2021. Both the NTRC and SNS are DOE scientific user facilities, providing access to the most advanced tools of modern science to researchers around the world.

The VULCAN instrument at the SNS is ideal for the research, as it accommodates larger structures, said Ke An, lead scientist for the instrument. VULCAN is designed for deformation, phase transformation, residual stress, texture and microstructure studies. According to An, they are preparing the platform for the neutronic engine with a new exhaust system and other retrofits, including a new control interface for the engine.

“This is what will get people excited, producing results on a larger, state-of-the-art engine,” An said. The neutronic engine “will provide even more options to users seeking to validate their models to resolve issues like stress, strain and temperature. It shows the direct value of neutrons to an important manufacturing sector.”

Measurements from the neutronic engine will be fed into high-performance computing, or HPC, models being developed by scientists to speed breakthroughs for advanced combustion engines.

Researchers are interested in creating accurate predictions of phenomena such as heat losses, flame quenching and evaporation of fuel injected into the cylinder, especially during cold-start engine operations when emissions are often highest. The data from the neutronic engine are expected to provide new understanding of how the temperature of metal engine components changes throughout the engine over the course of the engine cycle.

The resulting high-fidelity models can be quickly run on supercomputers such as Summit, the nation’s fastest and most AI-capable computer. Summit is housed at ORNL as part of the Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility, also a DOE scientific user facility.

“We’re bridging these fundamental science capabilities to applications and making measurements in real engineering devices and systems,” Wissink said. “The full measurement of strains and temperatures in engine components is something that has not been possible before. It’s crucial to have these data as either a validation or as a boundary condition for the HPC models that can be shared with researchers in the automotive industry.”

The neutronic engine augments existing capabilities at ORNL and other national labs in the work to create more energy-efficient and ultra-clean engines, said Robert Wagner, director of ORNL’s Buildings and Transportation Science Division.

“The ability to operate an engine in the neutron beamlines enables us to make unprecedented measurements under realistic engine conditions,” Wagner said. This capability adds to the one-of-a-kind resources that the national laboratories bring to advance the efficiency and emissions of combustion engines, such as the optical engine research at Sandia National Laboratories and with the Advanced Photon Source at Argonne National Laboratory.

The power of these unique resources is currently being aligned to solve the most challenging problems through a six-laboratory consortium called Partnership to Advance Combustion Engines, led out of the DOE Vehicle Technologies Office.

“What sets us apart here at ORNL is the portfolio of science available,” Wagner said. “We are making use of the world’s most powerful neutron source, the nation’s fastest supercomputer, and world-class materials science in coordination with our expertise in transportation to take on the grand challenges of a more sustainable energy future.”

The neutronic engine research is primarily supported by DOE’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) Vehicle Technologies Office. Access to the SNS is supported by DOE’s Office of Science. The research on the aluminum-cerium alloy was sponsored by DOE’s Critical Materials Institute, which is supported by DOE EERE’s Advanced Manufacturing Office, along with Eck Industries, which helped develop and test the alloy and has licensed the material.

UT-Battelle manages ORNL for the Department of Energy’s Office of Science, the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States. The Office of Science is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, please visit energy.gov/science.

The Boyd Center for Business and Economic Research in the Haslam College of Business at the University of Tennessee released its 2021 Economic Report to Governor Lee. Learn more: tiny.utk.edu/ERG2021

The report highlights projected state and national economic growth, unemployment, employment growth by industry, consumer spending and taxable sales.

This year’s report provides a retrospective on the COVID-19 pandemic’s effects on the Tennessee economy, with a central focus on the labor market and state tax revenue collections.

Here’s some more good news for doing business in Tennessee.

The fiscal stability of a state’s government is vital to ensuring the success of government-sponsored programs and projects and the quality of life of the state’s residents.

Tennessee is the top state for fiscal stability.

Read more: https://lnkd.in/e5dj_M7

This week Rep. Clark Boyd released an op-ed that notes that Tennessee’s business-friendly environment is crucial to ensuring economic recovery. The op-ed titled: Conservative Tennessee Policies Saved Economy from Pandemic and highlights a number of initiatives that Tennessee has focused on over the years that have produced significant economic growth. The publication also highlights where businesses have moved out of other states that have placed substantial operational, regulatory and tax burdens on employers. Rep. Boyd (R-Lebanon) has been chair of the Employee and Consumer Affairs Committee, which has jurisdiction over a substantial number of crucial business legislative proposals.

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Maryville College students now have access to a new, state-of-the-art business center, thanks to a generous gift from a former member of the MC Board of Directors – and longtime supporter of the 201-year-old institution and its mission.

            The Richard Leatherwood Business Center is located on the second floor of Thaw Hall, a building that was constructed in 1922 and also houses the College’s Division of Social Sciences, Lamar Memorial Library, Academic Support Center and classrooms.

            The new business center includes equipment that enables students to fully utilize the same software and technology services that they will use in the workplace: 14 high-end computers with large multimedia (webcam and sound bar) monitors and a wireless projection system with a large television that allows multiple users, including both faculty and students, to virtually collaborate in the lab. In addition to the technology upgrades, the space was fully renovated, and new furniture, lighting and carpet were installed.

“Quantitative skills are critical for managers functioning effectively in the workplace,” said Dr. Jenifer Greene, professor of management and faculty chair at Maryville College. “The Richard Leatherwood Business Center provides a space for students to engage in project work and class assignments with the proper hardware and software at their fingertips. Instructors from multiple courses, including BUS319: Marketing Research and ECN321: Intermediate Macroeconomics, find the Center to be instrumental in the delivery of their material. We are incredibly grateful for this generous gift!”

The business center was funded through a bequest from Dr. Richard Leatherwood, who was a member of the Maryville College Board of Directors from 1988 until 1999. Also through the bequest, the Richard L. Leatherwood Endowed Scholarship was established after Leatherwood’s passing in 2017 and is awarded annually to a Maryville College business major with financial need.

Leatherwood, who grew up in Blount County, graduated from Maryville High School, the University of Tennessee and Rutgers University, and he earned a Ph.D. from Georgia Institute of Technology. He was a member of Kappa Sigma fraternity. He was an officer in the U.S. Army and served in Vietnam. Early in his management career, he worked for American Freight in Kansas City, Mo., as well as Texas Gas Transmission in Owensboro, Ky., and Houston, Texas. Much of his work career was spent with CSX Transportation in Richmond, Va., and Baltimore, Md. In addition to Maryville College, he served on the Board of Directors of several organizations, including CACI International, CSX Transportation, Maryland National Bank, the Baltimore Opera, the University of Tennessee College of Business Advisory Board, and Dominion Resources. For several years, he chaired the boards of the B&O Railroad Museum and the Baltimore City Life Museums.

While not an alumnus of Maryville College himself, Leatherwood has many family connections to MC: his grandparents met when his grandmother, Mary Elizabeth Rasey, came from Michigan to attend Maryville College in 1911, and several family members are MC alumni, including his mother, Frances Feezell Leatherwood ’37; mother-in-law, Grace Wallace Anthony ’31; sister-in-law, Sue Anthony Dawson ’69; brother-in-law, Joe Dawson ’69; and nephew, David Dawson ’01 (spouse Jennifer Ferren Dawson ’02). There are also several relatives who attended Maryville College’s Preparatory Department in the late 1800s and early 1900s.

“Richard would have been proud to know that he had helped provide a special place for business students to gather and work,” said his wife, Mary Ann Leatherwood, after a recent visit to campus to tour the business center. “He had a keen regard for hard work and felt that a strong work ethic was an admirable character trait. My family and I are grateful to Maryville College for showing us a way we could honor Richard’s memory by helping aspiring students attain their goal of a business degree through the established scholarship and for guiding the development of the business lab. Richard considered it a privilege to be able to show his appreciation to the College for the quality education and sound guidance it has afforded several of his extended family members.”

            Since it opened this year, the business center has been utilized by many students and faculty members – and has fit a variety of needs.

“While the pandemic has complicated use of the space this fall for regular class meetings, the Richard Leatherwood Business Center has met unexpected needs,” said Dr. Sharon May, chair of the Division of Social Sciences and associate professor of economics at Maryville College. “We have been able to offer it for students who need a quiet space to work outside of their residence hall rooms, for students who need access to a working computer while theirs is being repaired, and to support online comprehensive exams. We also anticipate using it for advising during the upcoming registration period as we assist first-year students in designing their spring schedules. This gift has made a difficult time a little bit easier to manage.”

May added that she has been wishing for a computer lab teaching space in Thaw Hall since she joined the Maryville College faculty 15 years ago. 

“Having this space dedicated to teaching in the Business Program and more broadly in the Social Sciences is a dream come true,” she said.

Pellissippi State Community College broke ground today on its new Ruth and Steve West Workforce Development Center, a joint project with Tennessee College of Applied Technology Knoxville. 

The 51,000-square-foot building on the College’s Blount County Campus will help fill the area’s need for highly skilled, college-educated employees. Blount County has experienced $2.8 million in new capital investment and announced 5,500 new jobs since 2011, according to the Blount Partnership. 

Named for longtime Blount County Campus benefactors Ruth and Steve West, the workforce development center will include space for Pellissippi State’s Computer Information Technology, Culinary Arts, Electrical Engineering Technology and Electromechanical Engineering programs while TCAT will have space for its Engineering Technology program, giving that college its first footprint in Blount County. 

“I was on the Blount County Industrial Board for 20 years, and we brought a lot of diverse companies in and continue to do so,” said Mr. West, longtime owner of West Chevrolet and a former mayor of Maryville. “But it’s not like it was when I was young. A good attitude and willingness to learn, while important, are not enough in today’s economy. We need more specialized training to fill these jobs.” 

The center will help fill that gap, with a unique, integrated approach to workforce development. In addition to Pellissippi State’s partnership with TCAT, the workforce development center also represents a K-12 partnership, offering dual enrollment classes for high school students, focusing on high-demand career skills. Meanwhile, a new corporate training center will give the College’s local industry partners extra space and opportunity to train their employees at Pellissippi State. 

“Our institutional mission at Pellissippi State is to provide a transformative environment that fosters the academic, social, economic and cultural enrichment of individuals and of our community,” said Pellissippi State President L. Anthony Wise Jr. “The Ruth and Steve West Workforce Development Center is going to embody that mission in a tangible way, helping us prepare Blount County students for high-demand careers that will sustain them and their families economically and allow them to stay right here at home instead of leaving in search of well-paying jobs.” 

For example, the new building will include a 4,890-square-foot Culinary Institute that will allow the College to expand its Culinary Arts degree program and industry-recognized certification programs, increasing the number of graduates ready to fill in-demand culinary positions at hotels, restaurants, farmsteads, breweries, wineries and resorts across Blount, Knox and surrounding counties.

“The workforce development center will also help us serve our industry partners by providing  more space to train their employees and offering individuals the continuing education that helps them move to the next level in their careers,” said Teri Brahams, executive director of Economic and Workforce Development for Pellissippi State. “And with the flexible space located right outside our new Culinary Institute, the College can provide the community space to host events and have them catered by our Culinary Arts students. It’s a win for everyone.” 

Construction of the $16.5 million building, which was funded by the state of Tennessee and TCAT in addition to Pellissippi State, is projected to be complete in February 2022.  

The Pellissippi State Foundation raised $5.5 million for the workforce development center. In addition to the Wests, the center also received significant financial contributions from donors such as the Economic Development Board of Blount County Government, the City of Maryville and the City of Alcoa; Arconic Foundation; Blackberry Farm Foundation; Blount Memorial Hospital; Care Institute Group; Clayton Family Foundation; Clayton Homes Inc.; DENSO North America Foundation; and William Ed Harmon.