It is very much relevant. In the oft-recited "Reduce. Reuse. Recycle.", they're ranked in order of descending effectiveness: it's most effective to look for way

It is very much relevant. In the oft-recited "Reduce. Reuse. Recycle.", they're ranked in order of descending effectiveness: it's most effective to look for ways to reduce energy consumption. Yes, we need to look at which sources we're getting energy from, but just like the most bug-free code is the code that's never written, not needing the energy in the first place makes the first question moot. Of course, this is important across all energy consumption, but that doesn't make it irrelevant or hypocritical to discuss in the context of cryptocurrency mining.