No more so than the wastefulness of mining gold out of the ground, melting it down and shaping it into bars, and then putting it back underground again. Not to mention the building of big fancy buildings, the waste of energy printing and minting all the various fiat currencies, the transportation thereof in armored cars by no less than two security guards for each who could probably be doing something more productive, etc.
As far as mediums of exchange go, Bitcoin is actually quite economical of resources, compared to others.
Economic Argument 1
Bitcoin mining is a highly competitive, dynamic, almost perfect, market. Mining rigs can be set up and dismantled almost anywhere in the world with relative ease. Thus, market forces are constantly pushing mining activity to places and times where the marginal price of electricity is low or zero. These electricity products are cheap for a reason. Often it’s because the electricity is difficult (and wasteful) to transport, difficult to store, or because there is low demand and high supply. Using electricity in this way is a lot less wasteful than simply plugging a mining rig into the mains indiscriminately.
For example, Iceland produces an excess of cheap electricity from renewable sources, but it has no way of exporting electricity because of its remote location. It is conceivable that at some point in future Bitcoin mining will only be profitable in places like Iceland, and unprofitable in places like central Europe, where electricity comes mostly from nuclear and fossil sources.
Market forces could even push mining into innovative solutions that have an effective electricity consumption of zero. Mining always produces heat equivalent to the energy consumed - for example, 1000 watts of mining equipment produces the same amount of heat as a 1000 watt heating element used in an electric space heater, hot tub, water heater, or similar appliance. Someone already in a willing position to incur the cost of electricity for its heat value alone could run mining equipment specially designed to mine bitcoins while capturing and utilizing the heat produced, without incurring any energy costs beyond what they already intended to spend on heating.
(Note that this is just an example; mining will not always produce heat equivalent to the energy consumed because some energy is inevitably released as electromagnetic radiation, among others.)
Economic Argument 2
When the environmental costs of mining are considered, they need to be weighed up against the benefits. If you question Bitcoin on the grounds that it consumes electricity, then you should also ask questions like this: Will Bitcoin promote economic growth by freeing up trade? Will this speed up the rate of technological innovation? Will this lead to faster development of green technologies? Will Bitcoin enable new, border crossing smart grid technologies? …
Dismissal of Bitcoin because of its costs, while ignoring its benefits, is a dishonest argument. In fact, any environmental argument of this type is dishonest, not just pertaining to Bitcoin. Along similar lines, it could be argued that wind turbines are bad for the environment because making the steel structure consumes energy.
Ratio of Capital Costs versus Electrical Costs
The BFL Jalapeno hashes at 5.5 Gh/s using 30W. That device consumes about $40 per year in electricity (using U.S. residential average of about $0.15 per kWh.) But the device costs over $300 including shipping. Thus just about a quarter of all costs over a two-year useful life goes to electricity. This compares to GPUs where more than 90% of costs over a two-year life went to electricity. Even more efficient designs can be expected in the future.
en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Myths#Bitcoin_mining_is_a_waste_of_energy_and_harmful_for_ecology
