News Releases

Knoxville, Oak Ridge, Tenn., July 15, 2010 -- The Knoxville-Oak Ridge Innovation Valley has solidified its standing as a growing hub of corporate headquarters with the announcement that Knoxville-based Pilot Travel Centers has received the go-ahead from the Federal Trade Commission to complete its $1.8 billion merger with one of its top competitors, Flying J Inc.

KNOXVILLE/OAK RIDGE, Tenn., March 24, 2010 -- High tech researchers and the Knoxville-Oak Ridge Innovation Valley economic development partnership welcomed this week’s announcement by Department of Energy Secretary Steven Chu to extend the contract of UT-Battelle to manage Oak Ridge National Laboratory for another five years.

UT-Battelle, a partnership of the University of Tennessee, which is headquartered in Knoxville, and the Battelle Memorial Institute, has managed the lab since April 2000.

VONORE, Tenn., January 29, 2010 -- One of the world’s first cellulosic ethanol demonstration plants opened near Vonore, Tennessee, today, marking what Gov. Phil Bredesen calls “an important step forward” in the race to reduce dependency on fossil fuels.

The $50 million facility is expected to have an output of 250,000 gallons of ethanol annually and serve as a testing ground for new technologies that can be used in larger scale production.

KNOXVILLE and OAK RIDGE, Tenn., Dec. 18, 2009 -- Researchers and entrepreneurs in the Knoxville-Oak Ridge Innovation Valley (www.knoxvilleoakridge.com) see the successful test of Boeing's 787 as the day the carbon fiber era took flight.

The Innovation Valley is home to Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), the Department of Energy's largest research center, which finds itself at the forefront of applied carbon fiber research.