Quirk has worked for resources company, CRA (now known as Rio Tinto). He has also worked in the United States at Fermilab, the universities of Chicago and Harvard and at CERN in Europe. He was an early director of Biota, a company which developed an influenza drug. He has held several positions in utilities, electricity and transport industries including a founding directorship of the Victorian Power Exchange. Quirk was Deputy Chairman of VENCorp, which managed the transmission and wholesale natural gas market and system planning for the electricity market in Victoria, Australia. He is also a former Chairman of VicTrack, the owner of the state's railway assets.[6] Quirk also worked for James D. Wolfensohn in a venture capital fund based in New York City.[7] Quirk was appointed as a Fellow of the Heide Museum of Modern Art in Victoria, of which he is a benefactor.[8]
Quirk is an advocate for the expansion of Australia's role in the nuclear fuel chain and has expressed support for the development of uranium enrichment capacity, spent fuel reprocessing and future storage of nuclear waste in Australia.[9][6] One of the potential applications of nuclear energy in Australia is powering seawater desalination plants.[10] He has also challenged the work of anti-nuclear activist, Helen Caldicott.[11] Quirk contributed a chapter entitled Opportunities in the nuclear fuel cycle to the 2011 policy perspective publication Australia's nuclear options for the Committee for Economic Development of Australia (CEDA).[6]
In 2014 Quirk described the carbon bubble as a "white elephant" and claims that while CO2 in the atmosphere is increasing, atmospheric temperatures are remaining "dynamically stable."[19] As of 2015, Quirk continues to express his views via opinion editorials,[20] occasional interviews and speaking engagements. In 2015, Quirk spoke to the Australian Institute of International Affairs on the topic of technological innovation in Australia.[21] In a 2015 study about bias in climate science, Quirk and co-authors concluded: "Because of the above bias errors the hypothesis of dangerous global warming caused by human activity has not been substantiated by evidential science."[22]
Chambers, J., Miller, A., Morgan, R., Officer, B., Rayner, M., Sellars-Jones, G., & Quirk, T. (2015), "Psychology Behavioural Economics and Climate Change", Energy & Environment, 26(8), pages 1353–1358.
Chambers, J., Miller, A., Morgan, R., Officer, B., Rayner, M., Sellars-Jones, G., & Quirk, T. (2013). "A Review of the Scientific Evidence Underlying the Imposition of a Carbon Tax or ETS in Australia", Energy & Environment, 24(6), 1013–1026.
Quirk, Tom (2012). "Did the global temperature trend change at the end of the 1990s?". Asia-Pacific Journal of Atmospheric Sciences. 48 (4). Asia-Pacific Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences: 339–344. Bibcode:2012APJAS..48..339Q. doi:10.1007/s13143-012-0032-4. S2CID122610768.
Quirk, T. (2010). "Twentieth Century Sources of Methane in the Atmosphere", Energy & Environment, 21(3), 251–266.
Quirk, T. (2009). "The Australian Temperature Anomaly, 1910 - 2000", Energy & Environment, 20(1/2), 97–100.
Quirk, T. (2009). "Sources and Sinks of Carbon Dioxide", Energy & Environment, 20(1/2), 105–121.
^"EXECUTIVE TEAM & BOARD". 27 February 2015. Archived from the original on 27 February 2015. Retrieved 10 January 2016.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
^Chambers, J., Miller, A., Morgan, R., Officer, B., Rayner, M., Sellars-Jones, G., & Quirk, T. (2015), "Psychology Behavioural Economics and Climate Change", Energy & Environment, 26(8), pages 1353-1358.
