So there is is an inefficiency then in that the difficulty is self-adjusted to restrain the rate of block generation? I can understand that proof of work and proof of time is necessary for the whole btc network to work but it seems that making the tasks of proof of work and time more difficult than the ought to be introduces a lot of potentially unnecessarily wasted energy.
If more and more people start mining and btc generation is to be kept constant then say the few dozen mega watts used presently to generate the bitcoins could multiply very rapidly. What I find hard to accept is that this is all self-imposed. Unlike gold mining where extracting ore is necessarily difficult, the generation of BTC is just contingently difficult.
You and BitcoinBonus have eloquently explained why btc network requires proof of work and time but I'm not sure if the way things are set up at the moment is the most efficient method of ensuring a consistent generation of bitcoins and fulfilling the role that mining has.
Block creation is deliberately designed to be held at a fairly constant rate of one block every ten minutes, on average. There are various reasons for this. The technical reason is to actually
improve network efficiency - without the constraint, you would get a lot more machines generating blocks at about the same time, causing a lot more wasted time and network bandwidth. The economic reason is to ensure a predictable rate of money supply, which helps control the Bitcoin value.
In other threads, several miners have indicated they would be glad to buy hardware that is much more power efficient than their current setups (no pun intended :-D ). And I think most miners are sensitive to environmental concerns about wasted electricity. Environmental concerns are frequently mentioned in the Mining subgroup, particularly when comparing various hardware to use.