Money is stored in vaults because it takes a lot of energy to break into them. Fort Knox for example took a lot of energy to build and requires a lot of energy to maintain, and it would take tremendous amounts of energy for anyone to break in and take all the gold (if there is any). Only an extremely well armed military force capable of going toe-to-toe with the USA could pull it off - very unlikely but possible.

Bitcoin consumes so much energy because it is also like a vault, but unlike Fort Knox, any one can use it (not just the US government), including you! And unlike Fort Knox, nobody can break into this vault. No army or government in the world including the USA can expend enough energy to unlock a private key and steal the bitcoin it protects. And because of the energy bitcoin consumes, it is almost impossible to censor transactions by rewriting the blockchain.

When you read in the news "bitcoin consumes more energy than such and such country" this means that even if that country devoted 100% of it's energy output to attacking bitcoin it will fail. What could possibly be a safer way to store the hard-earned value you've accumulated throughout your life? All of this is thanks to the enormous amounts of energy bitcoin consumes. Bitcoin is not going away, so it's only wasted if you don't use it. So why not use it?