We see it lately in the numerous military procurements (particularly the F-35 program), in NASA's SLS rocket, in California's bullet train to nowhere, and urban tunnels such as New York's 2nd Avenue subway extension. It is why nuke plants are invariably so expensive and late.

In a word, corruption.

Lately, this corruption has been arranged to be wholly legal, so there is no possibility of prosecution. The majority of the money spent is funneled into myriad private pockets without moving the project toward completion. Nobody involved, at the monetary level, has any desire for it ever to be completed, because that is when the gravy train stops.

Fusion projects represent the worst case of this phenomenon. Nobody knows what it should cost, and nobody in control of spending wants it over with, ever.

The chance that anything of any practical use could come out at the end was openly foreclosed before it ever started: it was never promised to produce any electrical power, and no turbines, or space for any, appear in any site plan.

Any sort of practically useful Tokamak plant would need to be overwhelmingly bigger and more expensive than ITER, and could never come anywhere near producing commercially competitive power, so the project is a known dead end, to be milked until it is finally cancelled in shame.

What is tragic is that each euro diverted to this boondoggle brings climate disaster terrifyingly closer.