Before anyone makes excuses along the lines of "it's renewable from remote dams", that energy could could have always been used for something more productive. If it weren't for Bitcoin, they would be incentivized to build a datacenter there, build a smelting plant there, or even just build the transmission lines to get it to the grid.

Using renewable energy for Bitcoin takes that renewable energy out of the supply. How much coal is being burned in China because electricity pours into Bitcoin miners instead of onto a grid?