Tom Allen Quotes

The waste from power plants is essentially what is left over when you burn coal. And as we all know, coal is a relatively dirty mineral.

The U.S. limits mercury, arsenic, and soot from power plants. Yet, astonishingly, there are no national limits on how much carbon pollution these plants can dump into our atmosphere.

The trains carrying coal to power plants are death trains. Coal-fired power plants are factories of death.

Coal is our country’s dirtiest energy source, from mining to burning to disposing of coal waste…. Coal is an outdated, backward, and dirty 19th-century technology…. Not only is coal burning responsible for one third of US carbon emissions—the main contributor to climate disruption—but it is also making us sick, leading to as many as 13,000 premature deaths every year and more than $100 billion in annual health costs.

The biggest tab the public picks up for fossil fuels has to do with what economists call 'external costs,' like the health effects of air and water pollution.

People realised this is real pollution; it is not fog. Now everyone has to face the data and come out of their comfort zone.

Way back in 2000, the EPA was poised, and, in fact, had drafted a rule, to specially regulate pollution - water pollution and other types of pollution - from power plants, but the energy industry pushed back pretty significantly.

We do have serious energy needs for the country, we are aware that natural gas is especially in demand because of its air quality benefits: 90 percent of new power plants have been natural gas-powered.

The coal industry is a huge industry when we're talking about polluting the environment, our air and our waterways.

Power, as in the power structure, is why we are still using gas in cars.

When the President was asked about global warming at a public appearance yesterday, he responded by talking about America's addiction to oil. You make the connection.

Humanity has nearly suffocated the globe with carbon dioxide, yet nuclear power plants that produce no such emissions are so mired in objections and obstruction that, despite renewed interest on every continent, it is unlikely another will be built in the United States.

One of the first laws against air pollution came in 1300 when King Edward I decreed the death penalty for burning of coal. At least one execution for that offense is recorded. But economics triumphed over health considerations, and air pollution became an appalling problem in England.

Our hope is we move beyond denial and into debate... If we cleaned up the air, would it really be bad for us?

Our country has had a hard time learning that lesson with energy.

Extracting oil from the tar sands is a nasty, polluting, energy-intensive business.

The second thing is, if you want to do something about global warming, you have to think much more long-term. There is something wrong with saying we should start using renewables now, while they are still incredibly expensive.

Today's energy mix is the result of yesterday's consumer habits, considerable investment, and various political decisions. The potential of renewable energies, now a well-established fact, is undeniable if given the time to arrive at the technical and economic maturity that will free them from subsidization policies.

Coal boosters like to tout coal as cheap and plentiful - well, not anymore. At least not in China.

I think we should stop using nuclear power plants because it's an old system that we can't control.

The coal industry has helped fuel this Nation for 150 years, and coal can be used to heat our homes, power our economy, and protect our Nation for at least another 150 years if we continue to use it.

If we drill the hell out of everything, including protected public lands and fragile regions like the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, America can emerge as an 'energy superpower.'

The coal industry is an even larger part of the Australian economy than it is of the American, and it has an enormous amount of political power.

As state and federal lawmakers debate the country's energy policies and Colorado's role in the ever-expanding energy economy, let's hope they remember that unnecessary regulations stifle growth while doing nothing for public safety or health.

It's not as though we can keep burning coal in our power plants. Coal is a finite resource, too. We must find alternatives, and it's a better idea to find alternatives sooner then wait until we run out of coal, and in the meantime, put God knows how many trillions of tons of CO2 that used to be buried underground into the atmosphere.