are researcher/worker salaries still included in costs if the pilot or demo plants shut down?

[rjhanes]

And should they be - are we assuming the researchers get immediately laid off, or that they're kept on the project but re-tasked?

[rjhanes]

Research staff sent to either the pilot or demo plant are kept on salary as long as the Continuous XXing Hours stock is greater than zero. Thus even if the plants shut down, if they do so while there's still work to be done, those researchers working on the plant are kept on at the same salaries they were while the plant was not shut down.

The use of Continuous XXing Hours/piloting ongoing could be augmented with pilot and demo spending control which controls whether the plants are shut down or not. (NOTE that piloting ongoing doesn't mean that the pilot plant is operating, just that piloting has begun and the prescribed number of continuous hours has not yet been met.)