As usual, there's a middle ground. As we rely more and more on electrical devices, and fewer and fewer of them use disposable batteries, we load the grid beyond

As usual, there's a middle ground. As we rely more and more on electrical devices, and fewer and fewer of them use disposable batteries, we load the grid beyond what it was originally designed to do. There are a lot of people who simply work on figuring out "how far can we push the existing infrastructure" because there's no money around to upgrade it. No one technology is responsible for the increase in demand in electricity, it's many technologies coming together. Many are moving all their natural gas appliances to electric (especially here in the PNW where power is cheap thanks to hydroelectric dams). Electric cars, electric buses, electric ferries, etc are all going to increase demand for electricity, and the utilities are going to need a lot of money to upgrade the grid to keep up. Many say the US should upgrade all of its trains to electric, with overhead wires. Where is the power going to come from? Extensive studies would be needed for even short low-traffic lines to be built. When the Great Northern Railroad electrified their tunnel through the Cascade mountains, they had to build a hydroelectric dam to power it (luckily there was a river nearby). Luckily GPU mining is dead. I heard someone say that it accounted for 0.1% of all electrical power usage worldwide; if true that's pretty insane.