Such a POW change is not a cut and dried decision. To some, it would indicate the ultimate failure of Bitcoin's economic model. And ousting SHA256 miners would effectively pull the rug out from underneath the economy. A blockchain split would be inevitable and the security of the forked chain would be highly questionable.

It'd be interesting to see how that would play out, but it's not something I hope for. In that sense, maybe it's a good thing that local authorities are pressuring Sichuan miners to scale down.