Mercury's whisper thin atmosphere won't be much use for cooling anything, though possibly the surface would be. However, the real problem is that Mercury isn't actually tidally locked anyway.
> In fact, if we delay until the distant future, or even 50 years or so, such an effort probably will become impossible. This is because us humans will consume the Earth's non-renewable energy and mineral resources almost completely within the next 50-100 years, severely reducing our discretionary income for costly activities such as space travel.
I wonder when that was written...
Likely around 2013 by the Wayback Machine.
Makes me think of the Gell-Mann amnesia effect.
You could have the facility move constantly to keep the facility straddled across the sunlight line. At the equator, this would require constantly moving at about 7 mph, though you could reduce the speed necessary by moving to higher latitudes.
Appears in 2312 by Kim Stanley Robinson.
They move the whole city around the planet at 7mph!! 10/10 would recommend
Sounds like Absolution Gap and/or a less annoying version of the Mortal Engines movie (please tell me the book was better than this).
Also features in Charlie Stross, Saturn's Children.
Or another scifi novel, West of January by Dave Duncan.
Also appears in Asimov's classic "I, Robot" collection, as a Powell and Donovan story called "Runaround"[1].