> Could we do this without burning more energy than entire countries?

Based on my (arguably poor) ability to predict the future the answer seems to be a "No, crypto energy consumption will always be more than most countries".

Other people like the ETH and Nano developers seem to believe the answer is "Yes it is possible to be more efficient with crypto mining". However, I don't know their stance on "Will the energy consumption still be more than most countries?"

Ok, so we are going to burn a lot of energy because we don't like the current monetary system and haven't explored any alternatives at all.