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There is no "displacing" going on. The amount of hashing going on is independent of the amount of BTC mined or transactions verified per unit time.

Until such time that the hashrate rises to the point that BTC mining costs more than the power to run the same miners, nobody will be turning off the machines. Unfortunately that hasn't happened and won't for years ( barring BTC price drops).

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The difficulty increases pushing out inefficient miners who no longer can afford to mine due to electricity costs. This is a process that always happens.

Eventually, but at current prices existing hardware mines at well above electricity prices, so that won't happen any time soon.

It remains to be seen, but why couldn't flare-gas mining drive up the hashrate if it becomes popular?

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