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Every 4th years the bitcoin reward payouts are halved, the next halving being in June 2020.
This will create bigger competition amongst the miners and to compensate they will be arming up with more powerful mining equipment - which in turn leads to a bigger power consumption.
If the bitcoin price continues to climb, it will be more attractive to mine bitcoin.

This will make the power consumption increase proportionally with the price. If some of the predictions that the price of one bitcoin will reach $300,000 by 2020 comes true, the bitcoin network will consume as much power as the European continent!
Bitcoins valued at $300,000 will generate $197,000,000,000 in revenue each year from mining. The miner market will see a flow of new miners entering until all the profits are used to pay for the power consumption alone.

75-80% of all mining is based in China, resulting in massive burning of coal to power the energy required to operate the mining farms. The result is major CO2 emissions.
Local pollution is already a big problem in China, and this will only add to the effect.
In addition, the Chinese authorities are extremely negative the power supply in China is used for useless things in principle.
- If the people in Shanghai can't breath, the authorities will take action.

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