hi folks, i am still relatively new to bitcoin and trying to better figure it out. one of the things i don't understand yet is why the mining difficulty is raised so much that one seems to need super duper high end gears and GPUs to mine coins these days.

i understand that exact answers may not be possible, can can any of you give me an estimate of how much power is currently used to generate 1 BTC and how much it costs overall (including cost/depreciation of the rig)?