Energy costs are so high in the modern age relative to how dirt cheap it was pre-OPEC crisis, that any sort of significant energy consumption would be a barrier

Energy costs are so high in the modern age relative to how dirt cheap it was pre-OPEC crisis, that any sort of significant energy consumption would be a barrier to significant adoption. Your average Joe cannot afford to mine Bitcoin, for example. If anything we have mostly seen massive improvements in energy efficiency in the last two decades, with appliances, the switch to LED lighting from incandescent, heat pumps vs other heating/air technology, etc. What new technologies have shown up get quickly innovated in the name of energy efficiency.