The big three CC companies process around 1.3 billion transactions per day, while Bitcoin processes around 250 thousand transactions per day. That's 5200x more transactions, and you claim they're less efficient than Bitcoin. So... those three companies use >5000x as much electricity as Argentina? (Bitcoin currently uses 150 TWh/year, 5200x that is about 30x global electricity generation FYI).

(This is obviously not quite apples for apples, since you'd also have to account for VISA & Co. likely employing more people than Bitcoin, on the other hand, Bitcoin also requires absurd amounts of throw-away hardware.)

That does seem like the key question; do we have any way to get those numbers?