The Bitcoin network is a global energy buyer with properties unlike any other. It will continue to bid for stranded and excess energy that cannot be used for other applications. With last year's Chinese mining ban the network has become more distributed than ever and is likely to be very resilient to US domestic energy-price swings.

PoW is the solution to an important set of interconnected problems, and as long as the network has value, PoW will keep bidding for energy to secure that network.

It's been said, correctly IMHO, there is only Proof-of-Work and obfuscated Proof-of-Work. Rephrased, nothing is cheaper than Proof-of-Work: https://www.truthcoin.info/blog/pow-cheapest/

Quick look suggests that bitcoin energy consumption is a small fraction of world energy consumption. For me, it's hard to guess the effect on pricing. Bitcoin mining seems to be an arbitrage: Turning energy that's priced in one market, into money that can be spent in another market. This would seem to equalize energy prices across markets, while also discouraging countries from subsidizing energy.

You can’t mine Bitcoin on a GPU in 2022. ETH for a few more months (?) or whenever ETH2 rolls out and kills that too