We do, which is why it's so attractive to look at Bitcoin's energy consumption. The result is a big number, but we don't know how bad this number actually is be

We do, which is why it's so attractive to look at Bitcoin's energy consumption. The result is a big number, but we don't know how bad this number actually is because we don't have fairly accurate measurements of any other industry to compare it to. We can't answer the first questions that arise from this kind of analysis. For example, is Bitcoin the most energy intense industry, or is it really just because computing in general is energy intense? What percentage of overall computing is taken up by bitcoin? Are there other computing segments that are worse? We can't answer these questions very well, and even if we could the only way to regulate it would be to limit what we can do with our computers. Last I checked, the HN community hated such suggestions.