VDFs don't replace proof of work. In essence, POW is a lottery where everyone gets their own random lottery ticket and the lowest number wins. VDFs, instead, allow a large group of people to all share a SINGLE ticket, which simply spits out the ID of the winner.

This is conceptually a completely different approach and VDFs therefore aren't susceptible to the same problems as POW (though they have other unrelated problems, which this contest is trying to mitigate)

Possibly. But the CO2 is the big deal. I don't have much issue with "stake"-based mining, i.e. if it's just burning abstract money, instead of burning physical commodities.

To me this is like arguing that something like high frequency trading is ok because it doesn’t generate c02. The reality is that hundreds of millions in wasted human capital, particularly the best mathematical minds on the planet, is extremely costly. That much human capital, if allocated correctly, could likely do a lot to offset climate change, for example, among many other positive things.

Sure, go ahead and start a new project. Money's cheap with zero interest rates, funding startups has been ridiculously easy for the past 10 years.