This is actually a really good point.
All PoW has a cost.
ASICs spend most of that cost on electricity directly, which most often comes from clean hydropower.
Other PoW spends more of that cost on electronics hardware, whose mfg is of the dirtiest industries in the world. teapaw.org/SGBarbour/status/10021…
It’s ironic that Ethereum is anti-PoW due to the energy cost of mining, yet they use a PoW algorithm that produces more environmental waste via low power density hardware.