Byron Donalds outlines data center plan

As governor's race enters the final stretch, Byron Donalds is fleshing out his plans for adding more data centers in Florida. The Republican candidate for governor says data centers could use reclaimed water for cooling and small nuclear reactors for power. Our political editor Craig Patrick is here with a closer look at Donald's plan and how it differs from Democrat David Jolly's approach. Well sure there's a huge difference here between the candidates. The Democrat David Jolly wants a one-year pause on data centers then he said he could extend that to a long-term or permanent ban pending further study. There are still questions around public health. The noise pollution is exceedingly real. The destabilization of communities, the devaluation of real estate. And I think it also becomes a visual symbol of the greater anxieties about artificial intelligence, the loss of jobs, the disruption of wages. In contrast, Byron Donalds has embraced data centers as long as local governments approve their construction and that the data centers bear their full energy and water costs under existing and recent state law. For context, that law applies to the four leading power suppliers, not municipal utilities or rural co-ops. Now, at his last campaign stop here in St. Pete, Donald's took a pointed question about their water use as well. One of your more controversial stances, I think even amongst your fellow conservatives, is the data centers in Florida, specifically the impact on the aquifers. how do you address that to that point donald said he'd address it by requiring water use permits as we'd expect he said in the past and then he suggested using reclaimed water based on a discussion he had with the commissioner of agriculture take a look if they do get built why don't we require them to use reclaimed water from the water treatment plants that makes sense let them use the poopy water because we're not doing anything with the poopy water anyway so let them use it to cool servers okay let's do that donald's previously suggested they could pull water from the aquifer and then recycle it in a closed loop system so they wouldn't have to pull new water from the aquifer every single day now you just saw donald's is suggesting reclaimed water as an alternative linda and donald's has also suggested data centers could run on nuclear power how does he envision that coming together well going back to last year Donald's has suggested SMRs, which stands for small modular reactors. So he's saying that small nuclear fission reactors could go beneath the data centers. And then whatever power is not being used off the SMR can actually be put back on the grid for other uses. That's far more efficient. That's a higher capacity of use for that land and for the resources that our state has. When he says for that land, he's referring to solar farms. Donald specifically said he'd like to see data centers with small modular nuclear reactors on those places instead of solar farms throughout the state of Florida. In contrast, David Jolly wants more solar power, saying that solar and other renewable technologies can lower bills and create jobs and protect our environment. So what does the polling show on data centers? Well, there's different polls. First, you have Fox News polling generally shows that on the issue of large data centers that voters trust Democrats on the issue by a margin of 14 points. Specifically, though, here in Florida, University of North Florida polled on this in July, and it found 68 percent oppose data centers in Florida, 28 percent support it. If you look at similar polls, you have opposition significantly outweighing support, but by varying numbers. All right. A lot of information there, Craig Patrick. Thank you.