Is there a crypto coin where the mining work isn't a useless waste of energy? Bitcoin mining (and maybe litecoin, dunno) doesn't do anything useful in the proc

Is there a crypto coin where the mining work isn't a useless waste of energy? Bitcoin mining (and maybe litecoin, dunno) doesn't do anything useful in the process of using all those hardware and electrical resources. No protein folding, no SETI, no looking for mersenne primes - just a bunch of crypto work that gets you bitcoins. It'd be nice if you actually had to produce some knowledge to get the coins.