I read a very interesting article with calculations, BUT, I think it's not so bad with the consumption of electricity and capacity, you just need to be able to direct the same heat and so on to useful things = heating, heating and other consumer needs. Nothing goes away irretrievably .
Very true. Lots of people actually mine at home and use the heat to warm their homes, and hence saving on their heating bills. I run a few mining rigs in my garage which is attached to my house and i have the door open. I can tell you it gets very warm downstairs. I have my heating set on a thermostat so ithe miners keep the heat higher than it would normally be and so the thermostat kicks in and turns the heating off quicker than it would without the miners and so i save in my heating bill. win win....kerching!!!