If we assume energy costs to produce annual supply of new banknotes and coins in entire world is at 1 TWh. You see how insane energy consumption of Bitcoin really is.
And that's comparing an entire money supply of the world to single cryptocurrency.
Banks cannot be part of the equation as the need for banks would not cease if the world would switch to Bitcoin or similar.
I don't think BTC will stay the top crypto if it cannot resolve its current issues (though new ones will come after). Articles like takes stance, whether they know it or not, of this is here to stay for a long time and we need to deal with the ramifications. If that is true, more people are going to work on solving this issue either, or all of, through energy regulation, better hardware, better renewable energy, mass adoption of different coins, or moving to POS (or anything other proof system) instead of POW.
How many cash transactions occur in the world in 1 year? The number must be over 7 trillions assuming average person on this planet makes 1,000 cash transactions per year.
Now, let's divide 1 TWh by 7 trillions, we will get 0.14 Wh per cash transaction which is equivalent of having 60W light bulb switched on for about 8 seconds.
Considering one Bitcoin transaction currently consumes 345 kWh of electricity. That's equivalent of having 60W light bulb switched on for about 8 months.
So yeah, technically you are right. 8 seconds is not zero. But it's hell of a less than 8 months.
https://www.coindesk.com/microscope-real-costs-dollar/
Looks like data was taken from places like: https://www.ecb.europa.eu/stats/policy_and_exchange_rates/ba...
and rest of the numbers were taking into account of how much each note costs to make.
"The Euro publishes sustainability statistics on their currency, and according to latest estimates, 3 billion banknotes printed in 2003 had an equivalent energy impact of 460,000 60W bulbs switched on for a year, which equates to 240 million kWh, or 0.87 million GJ. With circulation now at 15.8 billion notes, this would scale up to 4.6 million GJ (European Central Bank, 2007). To get to a global figure, for the purposes of this report, I will be multiplying this figure by a factor of four (i.e. a proportional share of global M0/M1 money supply). Therefore, we reach a figure of 18.4 million GJ, which would correspond to almost 3.07 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent."
This is just making a bank note, nothing about cost to distribute (guarding money, banking system, credit system).