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Lots of things can be used as stores of value that don't require the electrical output of a medium sized country.

I disagree. The only asset that falls into this category is credit. And credit is not a good -- it's a promise that someone will deliver a good to you when you demand it. And this type of promise tends to be broken just when you need it the most.

Proof of stake coins exist and work just fine. Tezos. Ethereum.

Proof-of-stake has different properties than proof-of-work.

For example, given n different chains, proof-of-work (PoW) reaches consensus simply by choosing the chain with the most work — irrespective of block contents. Proof-of-stake (PoS), on the other hand, requires granting special meaning to a particular public key (in the first block) in order to reach consensus.

So PoW reaches consensus without granting special meaning to any public key while PoS requires this in order to work.

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