Vulcan Infrastructure and Power used to mine bitcoin. Now it wants to triple its energy use and become an AI data center.
Activists are gathering Monday in Geneva, New York to press Governor Kathy Hochul to sign the Responsible Data Center Development Act, a bill that passed both chambers of the state legislature with bipartisan support in June but hasn't yet been signed into law.
The Pivot at the Center of the Fight
Vulcan is the rebranded name of Greenidge Generation, based in the Yates County town of Torrey on Seneca Lake. It's the latest company to abandon cryptomining for AI infrastructure instead.
That pivot follows a pattern MAIN has covered elsewhere. Nscale, the AI data center operator now pursuing a $3 billion IPO, started the same way, as a crypto mining operation before shifting entirely to AI.
"They are doing this while asking communities to absorb the same environmental and economic harms," said Joseph Campbell, president and co-founder of Seneca Lake Guardian.
Two Different Levels of Protection
New York already has one data center policy in place. Hochul signed Executive Order 62 on July 14, creating a temporary moratorium on large-scale data centers over 50 megawatts.
Activists say that's a real step, but a narrower one than the legislature's own bill. The Responsible Data Center Development Act sets its moratorium threshold at just 20 megawatts, well below the executive order's 50-megawatt line, and adds requirements the order doesn't include: energy-efficiency standards, a public benefit program for host communities, project labor agreements, and public hearings before any permit gets approved.
Whether Vulcan's planned facility would even fall under either measure isn't yet clear. Activists say that uncertainty is itself part of the problem, since a facility with Greenidge's specific regulatory history is exactly the kind of case a broad, well-defined statewide standard is supposed to catch.
The History Activists Don't Want Repeated
Greenidge's own regulatory record is central to the case activists are making. According to Campbell, the state denied Greenidge's air permit in 2022, only for the Hochul administration to reach a closed-door settlement in 2025 that let the operation continue.
Campbell says the facility remains permitted to withdraw up to 139 million gallons of water from Seneca Lake daily and emitted close to half a million tons of carbon dioxide in a single year.
"Residents are concerned history could repeat itself," said Yvonne Taylor, vice president and co-founder of Seneca Lake Guardian.
"Gov. Hochul must sign the Responsible Data Center Development Act to protect New Yorkers after the data center moratorium has expired," Taylor added.
Cornell ecology professor Robert Howarth is among those expected to speak at Monday's event, alongside bill sponsor State Senator Kristen Gonzalez and Assemblymember Anne Kelles.
What This Means for Miami
This is the same national pattern MAIN has tracked all year: a Gallup survey found 7 in 10 Americans oppose AI data center construction in their own community, and that sentiment has already reshaped races from Florida's governor's primary to Pennsylvania's executive actions.
For Miami, the Vulcan story adds a specific new wrinkle worth watching: facilities that started as crypto mining operations carry a regulatory history, water permits, air permits, prior violations, that a brand-new AI data center proposal wouldn't have. As more crypto sites nationally follow Nscale and Vulcan's lead and repurpose themselves for AI, that permitting history is likely to become a bigger factor in local fights than it has been so far, including in any similar conversions happening closer to South Florida.