In the 12 years since the meltdowns, Tepco’s disaster response efforts, always heralded as fixes, have been a series of hugely expensive failures: the “advanced” wastewater filter system “ALPS” has failed; the buried “ice wall” groundwater barrier has failed; containers made for the radioactive sludge produced by ALPS have failed; and plans to deal with millions of tons of collected debris -- now kept in plastic bags — are being fiercely resisted by Japanese citizens.
Japan is almost uniquely bad though. A super aged population and a society that values conformance over anything else results in agonizingly slow and absurd government reactions.
They need 4 committee meetings each morning just to drink tea: one for to pick the teams, one team meeting to pick the tea, and another team meeting to pick the cup. There’s a final meeting at the end to discuss the costs associated with the tea and how to more properly distribute it according to rank and social standing, as one does.
And the sad thing is that this is so much closer to the truth than most people want to believe.