Doesn't every new big new technological boom show a huge increase in electricity usage at its early stages. I don't have hard numbers but i am sure that when the dot com boom took place there was also a big affect on electricity consumption with newer tech being created to satisfy the demands of the industry. Anyone my point is that this has surely happened in history it is just portrayed in different ways by the people with power so that the average joes have different perceptions on it i.e the media generally hasn't been pro cryptocurrency or bitcoin at all so of course they would use this as an argument against it.