Ethereum energy consumption is more than the entire island of Cyprus, as well as Cambodia and Brunei, according to reports.
Mining of Ethereum, which is still available with standard home hardware, “could be consuming as much as 4.2 Terawatt-hours (tWh),” Business Insider notes, citing research by Digiconomist founder Alex de Vries.
The findings are part of the resource’s Ethereum Energy Consumption Index, launched to track expenditure as the network prepares to transfer from Proof-of-Work to Proof-of-stake model called Casper.
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin on his twitter page also forecasts other benefits for network participants and investors once Casper was activated.
However, Per transaction, however, Ethereum is still considerably cheaper than Bitcoin concerning mining costs.
https://cointelegraph.com/news/ethereum-mining-needs-more-energy-than-cyprus-cambodia-brunei
This isn't the most comfortable time to be buying ETH. It's short-term value outlook is pretty insecure. Of course, if you believe in the technology long-term, I would say buy and hodl. It's long-term outlook still looks good.
I believe in ETH though the market is much more gloomy nowadays, the best is yet to come.