The guy at the controls
Subtitle: labor quality and power plant efficiency
By: James B. Bushnell, Catherine Wolfram.
Contributors: Wolfram, Catherine D.; National Bureau of Economic Research.
Series: NBER working paper series -- no. 13215.; Working paper series (National Bureau of Economic Research) -- working paper no. 13215.
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research
Published: 2007
Place of publication: Cambridge, Mass
Language: eng
Number of pages: 29
Subjects: Electric power-plants -- Efficiency -- Mathematical models
Description: This paper examines the impact of individual human operators on the fuel efficiency of power plants. Although electricity generation is a fuel and capital intensive enterprise, anecdotal evidence, interviews, and empirical analysis support the hypothesis that labor, particularly power plant operators, can have a non-trivial impact on the operating efficiency of the plant. We present evidence to demonstrate these effects and survey the policies and practices of electricity producing firms that either reduce or exacerbate fuel efficiency differences across individual plant operators.
Notes: "July 2007"

Includes bibliographical references (p. 22-23).

Also available in PDF from the NBER world wide web site (www.nber.org).