I'm about as against LLMs and "generative AI" as a person can possibly be, but I've never really thought the argument "because it uses too much electricity" is a good one. Neither was it a good argument against blockchain (which I'm also as against as a person can possibly be.)
"Such-and-such uses as much energy as a small country." Yeah, but, you know what else uses as much energy as a small country? A small country. Should we abolish countries? Well, yes... but not because they use too much electricity. Or at least to single that out as the reason is to very much miss the point. It would be like quitting cigarettes because you know someone named "Sharon" who smokes and you hate people named Sharon.
For another example, do we want to abolish the gaming industry because it uses a lot of electricity? Like, it definitely uses a ton of electricity, right? There's no arguing that. If you add up the total electricity usage of every console and gaming rig on the planet, you're going to end up with a big number. And that big number translates into big greenhouse gas emissions. And, yes, that's bad. But at the same time, there's definite utility to gaming. Like, it's fun as fuck.
Not convinced by the gaming example? How about the healthcare industry? Should we abolish MRI machines and heart monitors because they use too much electricity?
Should we throw LLMs in the trash heap and look back on them with embarrassment? Yes, for sure. But not specifically because they use too much electricity. Because they don't fucking work for any useful use case.
I would be down for the argument that they use too much electricity relative to how much utility they give. But honestly, the utility they produce is zero (and that's if you're being charitable.) So... what exactly does bringing up electricity usage even add to the conversation?
I also would be down for the argument that companies are manipulating local governments and municipal utility companies to give them preferential treatment with regard to their power usage and destabilizing local power grids for people who use electricity for important things like cooking, cleaning, entertainment, etc. Let alone for more important things like in-home medical equipment, HVAC (lack of air conditioning can be a huge medical emergency sort of problem especially for older folks), communication lines to emergency services, etc.
There are plenty of things that use a lot of electricity that ought to be a thing of the past. And there are plenty of things that use a lot of electricity that... I think at least most people would be hard pressed to agree should be abolished. LLMs are in the former category. But you can't really convince people to abolish LLMs "because they use too much electricity" without using an argument that would equally well apply to things that almost no one would agree should be abolished (like health care), and unless your target audience is anarcho-primitivists who make up a pretty tiny sliver of the overall population, that's probably not a winning strategy. So leave electricity out of it and focus on the fact that LLMs are complete scams with no utility and the hype is causing massive concrete harms to real people.