Yes, it is an energy hog. There are a lot of industries that consume more energy than bitcoin mining.
The reason none of this matters is because the market says it doesn't matter. The market is finding enough value from Bitcoin to keep running the network. Going forward, I think energy consumption won't matter because we are now producing more power than we can consume. For example, Germany had to pay citizens to consume power because there was a glut. Another example recently was in California where the state had to pay Arizona to take their excess capacity.
The same is happening in China. China is heavily investing in alternate forms of energy and when you boil it down, it is still cheap to mine a 14,000+ USD bitcoin. In other words, the market says it's ok.
The reason none of this matters is because the market says it doesn't matter. The market is finding enough value from Bitcoin to keep running the network. Going forward, I think energy consumption won't matter because we are now producing more power than we can consume. For example, Germany had to pay citizens to consume power because there was a glut. Another example recently was in California where the state had to pay Arizona to take their excess capacity.
The same is happening in China. China is heavily investing in alternate forms of energy and when you boil it down, it is still cheap to mine a 14,000+ USD bitcoin. In other words, the market says it's ok.