> And people making transactions will not pay more fees than they need to, so the existence of miners able to mine profitably for lower fees will in turn bring

> And people making transactions will not pay more fees than they need to, so the existence of miners able to mine profitably for lower fees will in turn bring down average fees. Only to a point. Since a limited number of transactions can fit into a block, users competing to get their transactions mined in a timely manner will drive the fees up. That price point can be well above the cost of many forms of energy. So as long as Bitcoin is still valued and there are enough people wanting to make transactions, there will still be miners burning useful energy.