This idea popped into my mind today. What if environmentalists and politicians are short-sighted? What if bitcoin is the most eco-friendly option for cryptocurrencies?
Lets start with the facts:
57% of the energy used for crypto mining comes from renewable sources (hydro, wind, solar, nuclear, geothermal and carbon generation with carbon offsets.
This alone won't prove my theory, its just a good start. Mining is not that bad and gets better every year as going eco-friendly not only a PR move, you can save money with them. Some businesses bought mining rigs to heat their offices, the BTC reward just a plus. And that is just one idea.
But I won't talk about these, as you can see them elsewhere. Continue instead with my vision..
You may heard about network effects. PoS uses less energy...end of story. But PoW? PoW has a huge networking effect. Its basically a very computing intesive algorithm which forces every participant to get creative, to be more efficient. It forces the chip-makers to make more-and more capable hardware.
They would do them even without bitcoin, but now they are forced to do it faster, as the market is starving after their new stuff. Simply put, PoW accelerates innovation. And this innovation makes every other field on Earth more and more efficient and eco-friendly.
Conclusion
Bitcoin, if sucessfully replaces the financial systems, the whole thing will be much simpler. Simplicity means less energy (think about bank tellers, buildings, bribed politicians).
Plus this forced innovation makes better hardware which we can benefit from on limitless areas.
Put these together with the fact that the BTC network is not-so energy hungry as they try to tell. Just compare it to the current fintech fields.