> It's because of how the mining-price system works, proof-of-work energy consumption is independent of the technology widely used. In other words, you can't so

> It's because of how the mining-price system works, proof-of-work energy consumption is independent of the technology widely used. In other words, you can't solve the proof-of-work energy consumption problem with a new proof-of-work hashing technology. This is not strictly true. The cost to mine will converge with the proceeds of that mining -- that is economic law. But the total cost of mining is actually the cost of ownership + the cost of operation of the hardware. As we know, electricity presently dominates the cost of operation and the total cost. But you can imagine a very low power chip that is expensive to make -- like this photonic PoW, maybe -- and then the cost of the chips themselves dominate the total cost and drive down energy usage as a portion of the whole pie.