[en] Substantial cost overruns and schedule delays are traits of the power plant construction industry, specifically the young and controversial nuclear power plant construction industry. These cost and schedule overruns are having a significant effect on the economic feasibility of many power plants, and the future energy supply network of our country may have to be restructured in light of these overruns. A major cause of cost overruns is related to the declining rate of productivity of workers. Marjatta Strandell, an engineering and construction expert for the Pacific Power and Light Company, Portland, Oregon, reports that since 1970 craft productivity in nuclear and fossil-fuel power plant construction has been decreasing at an average annual rate of four percent. The cumulative effect of this indicates that, by 1980, the craft productivity would be a mere sixty percent of the 1970 craft productivity