Yes it doesn't make sense what they wrote. Basically miners compete to be the first to solve the complex puzzles, however the algo increases the difficulty not in electricity consumption.
Only way that electrcitiy consumption is increased is if someone buys more miners or ASICs or GPUs. But the algo still stays the same. What the main goal of the article should of been is just to state that it consumes lots of power during an electricity shortage.
Well since 50%+ of miners could go offline right now and things would be ok, the network performing the same - they could try to instead limit the amount of power per person for mining - but that just seems like a lessor of the two evils to me.
Sabrina Toppa is an award-winning journalist focusing on cryptocurrency, blockchain, DeFi, NFTs, and Web3. She has written for The Guardian, TIME Magazine, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, and other publications. Follow her on Twitter @SabrinaToppa.