That's fine, please run the math again then. (Edit: I did not downvote, it's a legitimate question /edit)
I've done it myself also in the past because, like you, I couldn't believe it either (this was around 2018 I'd guess).
It's a fairly simple calculation to take an energy-efficient graphics card and see how many SHA2 hashes per second you can get from that, see its energy consumption (ignore the rest of the computer and connectivity to support the GPU for now), multiply that with the hash rate, et voila you get some ridiculous number (don't remember, but something like half the world's energy consumption). This indicates that all Bitcoin miners are using ASICs. Now the question becomes how efficient a Bitcoin ASIC is, and when you hunt for that number and plug that in, the result is in the same range as what the news has been saying.
Edit: if you want to take a shortcut and use a readymade hashes per gigajoule value from last summer, see figure 1 here https://ccaf.io/cbeci/index/methodology </edit>
It also roughly works out when you look at kWh costs versus Bitcoin profit per consumed kWh, so the figure is not unreasonable. People would be leaving money on the table if their real electricity consumption were lower, because then they could add more equipment and make greater profits. Everything points towards this unbelievable waste to be real, unfortunately.