But why single out Bitcoin? What about all the data centers serving Netflix movies? Others might say those are excess. Consider the annual energy consumption of tumble-dryers in the USA (which uses more energy than bitcoin mining): in Europe where I live most people I know hand their clothing to dry, thus they might consider American dryers to be an excess of electric consumption.
Last time I checked, bitcoin miners have to compete for energy same as anyone else---and when energy prices rise, they move their operations to where its cheaper.
That why they're using methane gas that would have been flared by oil companies to generate electricity to mine bitcoin in the west Texas oil fields... which is net positive, because the resulting CO2 emissions are 84x less carbon-intense for the atmosphere than the flared methane would have been.
Or, there is Vespene Energy, a bitcoin mining startup helping US municipal landfill operators comply with new expensive EPA methane emissions regulations by using landfills emitted methane to generate electricity, which they then use to mine bitcoin and they share the profits with the landfill operators. The cool thing with their business model is they can simply sell the electricity to other grid customers, but the reason they often end up mining Bitcoin with the power is because the landfills are often not near cities or large areas of electricity demand.
If one takes time to research this, one would see that bitcoin miners have a strong financial incentive to find the cheapest sources of power, which are typically stranded or waste power. Bitcoin mining is improving the environment.