alt Hacker Newshow about the non-stop methane burnoff for months ("flare") from all the oil fracking fields in the US that can be seen from SPACE for the past DECADE
* https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2014/10/20/ameri...
* https://science.nasa.gov/earth/earth-observatory/gas-drillin...
that's already raising the local area temps, why not put that wasted fuel to work instead?
build the datacenters literally next to the fracking fields, absolutely no-one there to complain, they all moved away already from the toxic air/water and there's already unlimited fuel
You described the company Crusoe. They've been building datacenters that do exactly what you said.
https://www.crusoe.ai/resources/blog/understanding-the-probl...
> Crusoe has built their business around turning flaring from an operational and regulatory risk for oil and gas companies, as well as an existential risk for our planet, into a multi-solve solution. Crusoe doesn’t just mitigate flaring emissions. They capture the gas, convert it into energy, and use it to power computing infrastructure.
Edit: Crusoe sold its bitcoin-mining operation including the Digital Flare Mitigation business to NYDIG in 2025, so the above may be inaccurate.