I see bitcoin miners as energy punching bags in a way. I see them basically becoming a fundamental pillar of energy distribution and grid balancing tool, so I can also foresee energy companies and even governments mining for reasons other than just profits.

The fact that ASICs can take a 12v batteries worth of energy or as much energy as Sweden uses (or much much more) and utilize that energy for hours on end or intermittently, irregularly at unexpected and undetermined highs and lows is what makes them so amazing. That's an ASIC's superpower.

I'm pretty sure like 60% of all energy produced in America is literally just lost in transmission because they use huge power plants that generate massive amounts of energy and ship it massive distances to consumers. the consumer ends up paying for what they use and what was lost along the way to get it there. The environment suffers as more than double the energy is required to cover our levels of consumption.

With btc miners acting as "energy punching bags", we can build smaller power plants much closer to where we need them, thus requiring much less energy to be produced and the miners will act as the peaker plant / grid balancing tool.

Then there's also the whole, bitcoin mining provides incentive to build out clean abundant energy sources as miners profits are dictated by their energy costs (amongst other things).. yadda yadda I could go on but I know you know lol.

I think it's important the miners continue to compete to earn profit as this continually increases the security of the network, but I agree that there is incentive beyond profit to mine.