I don't think TRPoW is a recipe for disaster. Far from it. Keep in mind that Bitcoin worked with small group of miners for many years.
that was before bitcoin exploded onto the world scene. the whole world depends on it now and i dont know if there's any justification for trying to reduce energy consumption. for example, do you think bitcoin miners are just going to let their hardware sit idle for 8 minutes? or however long the 2nd round lasts? they'll divert their hashing power to something else for that amount of time and then bring it back when the next round 1 starts. so all you're really accomplishing is weakening your own network by letting go of some of its hashing power which will get used somewhere else. it's not a net gain for the environment. it's neutral.
the hardware is there. it's going to be running and hashing something. you might as well take advantage of it fully, which is what bitcoin currently does. thats how i see it anyway.

we don't care about cardona or ethereum here. so we dont want bitcoin hardware being diverted to strengthen those networks.
Hi Harry,
I do see your point very well.
But I think the question is a bit more philosophical: Just because we have a machine does this means that we need to use it at all cost and all the time?
We don't use our Laptop / Car all the time just because we bought them. We only use them when we need them.
Although the mining hardware is there, we still need Electricity to make it work. So the question now what is the tradeoff between electricity consumption and the hardware usage over a long run ?
It is known that the intensive usage of a hardware make it wear quickly.
So We can see TRPoW as way of reducing usage of mining machines which will make them last longer.
What do you thing?