[wobblyasp]

I know of not a single person who's bought a small shed and/or building to house all the equipment required to run a video game, then additionally leave the hardware running a full blast 24/7

This feel like false equivalence.

Additionally, it does becomes "our" problem when the load placed on grids starts to impact the average consumer, which it has in various smaller communities where miners of setup shop.

[hntroll666]

It's none of your business. The electricity is purchased privately. "Load placed on grids starts to impact the average consumer" is like somebody keeps buying all the boxes of the kind of Cheerios you like, i.e., not an infringement of your rights, just market stuff happening. You living in my neighborhood "impacts" me in ways I don't like, but I don't give you a hard time about it because I don't have the mentality of putting my nose into the details of other people's lives. There's an unacknowledged cult rising to prominence, and one of its tenets is that "electricity should only be used in small quantities for approved purposes". Well, I reject that. If your concern is pollution, please speak about that, not electricity use.