> I don't see why the bitcoin case needs to be singled out any more than the yacht, private jet, gaming rig, or hell...even personal car cases.

Because Bitcoin literally is designed to waste electricity on proof of work. The Ethereum network has the processing power of a Raspberry Pi and wastes fantastic amounts of electricity to deliver that paltry power. Bitcoin alone uses more power than all of Google's operations.

I doubt that the total power used by the world's yachts and private jets per year is even half the power the Bitcoin network literally wastes.