This graph gives you an idea of oil consumption for Bitcoin vs. GOLD. Commentary: I believe blockchain is the future of conducting pier to pier contracts/transactions but this BTC and its energy consumption issue is a real humanity "negative" . I mean if it served but one other purpose besides mining and verifying the blockchain, I could see a guaranteed future, but it doesn't so therefore eventually I see it either self-doomed to fail or local governments will cut the power off to whoever they think is mining BTC.
To argue on the side of BTC: Perhaps maybe the other possible benefit is our computing power capability is growing (maybe) at a faster pace due to the constantly new tech needed to crunch more faster and with less power. A big ?? for that one.
Some could argue gold has no benefit - if you are that person just look up "Gold use in Technology"
Source:
SRSRocco
Marc Bevand Blog