Why?

A trillion times more solar energy lands on the planet every day and is wasted.

> solar energy lands on the planet and is wasted.

How do you know? I actually don't see how even one milliwatt of it could be "wasted": Even if it arrives in the midst of the ocean, this milliwatt is still heating the water, which allows for clouds, which gives us rain, and life.

The only possibly wasted energy is the rays the Sun sends to the nil, and maybe artificial satellites could grad a piece of it.

I presume you're simply being contrary, but in case it needs pointing out, that represents huge and highly-avoidable human-caused carbon emissions.

The sun's beat down upon Earth for 4.5Bn years and will hopefully do so for about the same again.

Short-termism's just sad and puts a knot in my belly.

As was said elsewhere in the thread, they are safety fires and the whole operation would be incredibly dangerous without them.

Sure, i get that—but thems're free fuels they be wasting.

That's the only point I think I've tried to get across, from when I was the first person to comment on this thread...

That gas is already being fed through pipes to the burn stacks. The cost of doing something with it is a lot less than trying to capture the terawatts of solar falling on the planet.