According to a press release carried by Eurekalert
In the first rigorously peer-reviewed article quantifying Bitcoin's energy requirements, a Commentary appearing May 16 in the journal Joule, financial economist and blockchain specialist Alex de Vries uses a new methodology to pinpoint where Bitcoin's electric energy consumption is headed and how soon it might get there.
The abstract of the article says
The Bitcoin network can be estimated to consume at least 2.55 gigawatts of electricity currently, and potentially 7.67 gigawatts in the future, making it comparable with countries such as Ireland (3.1 gigawatts) and Austria (8.2 gigawatts). [...]
The author offers a caveat:
[...] all of the methods discussed assume rational agents. There may be various reasons for an agent to mine even when this isn't profitable, and in some cases costs may not play a role at all when machines and/or electricity are stolen or abused.
[Other] reasons for an agent to mine Bitcoin at a loss might include [...] being able to obtain Bitcoin completely anonymously, libertarian ideology [...] or speculative reasons.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 21 2018, @11:00PM
Not necessarily, you can make an environmental argument that by burning the coal in this way it is cleaner than how it would have otherwise been burned (eg in china) thus reducing the total amount of pollution. On the other side you can argue it is just "trolling the libtards" on a worldwide scale: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolling_coal [wikipedia.org]
On both sides you can argue that this project will create new jobs. Combined with partisan politics and splitting up the project amongst many places, I'm sure 40-50% of people could be convinced to get behind this idea.