Oh, glad you mentioned that @moyleh — I should have highlighted it.
You may have even seen my jaw drop when he said it.
Not to go on about it too much (sorry), but that’s exactly why Bitcoin mining is such a natural fit for these guys. It adds another buyer into the mix, giving them a lot more ability to optimise what they can sell their electrons for.
Forget any opinion you may have on the magic internet beans — the reality is, there’s no other customer like it for an electricity generator. Always a buyer of last resort, can spin up or down in an instant, producing a commodity that can always be sold instantly into a highly deep and liquid market that’s open 24/7, tiny footprint, no exogenous infrastructure requirements, can relocate easily… (and you’re helping to secure the world’s most robust and incorruptible public ledger!)
At the very least it'd be worth a small trial. Just open the doors to 3rd party miners and let them worry about the set up.
I find it more than a little ironic that they didn't pursue it more because of the perceptions of some shareholders, who it seems were quite attracted by the ESG/renewable angle, and who see BTC mining as bad for the environment (which it isn't)