Posted on 05/08/2026 4:49:25 PM PDT by chickenlips
While blue-state politicians are busy hosting climate summits, renaming highways and explaining why your electric bill doubled, Gov. Ron DeSantis is doing something increasingly rare in American politics: governing like an adult with a calculator.
This week, DeSantis rolled out a pair of measures aimed squarely at one of the next great political fights in America — hyperscale AI data centers gobbling up electricity, water and land while ordinary residents get stuck with the bill.
And unlike the performative governing out of California or New York, Florida’s approach is brutally simple: protect taxpayers first.
“This bill I think is the first in the country that ensures that the rhetoric we hear is actually reality on the ground,” DeSantis said while announcing the legislation. If Silicon Valley wants to build gigantic AI server farms in Florida, they’re not going to drain neighborhoods dry or jack up utility bills for working families.
That’s where Senate Bill 484 comes in. “What it does is it protects consumers from footing the bill for any hyperscale data center in the state of Florida,” DeSantis said.
Imagine that. A governor openly saying regular people shouldn’t subsidize trillion-dollar corporations. In 2026, that almost sounds revolutionary.
The issue is bigger than politics. AI data centers consume staggering amounts of electricity and water. Some facilities use millions of gallons a day just to cool servers. In a state currently battling drought conditions and wildfires, DeSantis made the obvious point that somehow escapes the geniuses running other states:
“How are you going to say that somehow the water can go to data center when we need the water for our own people and for the core functions of our society?” That line alone separates Florida from the bureaucratic clown shows elsewhere.
(Excerpt) Read more at thedailybs.com ...
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Why can't this be recycled?
The kind of politicians our forefathers intended are a serious threat to the deep state, hence the second amendment.
maybe at this moment he is doing some thing useful, usually he had been out promoting himself.
desantis is more puppet than person.
l.desantis is more puppet than person”
ROTFLMAO!
SOME CAN BE-—BUT NOT ALL. SOME IS LOST TO THE ATMOSPHERE.
It is somewhat. But these centers use evaporative cooling because it is cheap. The water is literally evaporated by the heat of the servers. The are just giant “swamp coolers”.
They could run a closed loop cooking system where the hot water is cooled by refrigeration. But that is more expensive.
I doubt all the data centers put together will ever rival the amount of water used in the heyday of manufacturing. I live in area that had 20 paper mills lining a river over 49 miles. They tapped the river and an aquifer. After everyone of them closed. Many people had to install sump pumps. No one complained back then.
“They could run a closed loop cooking system where the hot water is cooled by refrigeration. “
What cools the refrigeration system?
They’re building an AI center right smack dab in the middle of the city where my daughter lives. They claim that they’ll be using a closed-loop system to cool down their system - no evaporation, no constant refilling. Supposedly this is much the same way as how some gaming computers are filled with water & this gets moved throughout the computer to keep it cooled.
Not saying I understand or agree with this but that’s what the residents are being told.
Gov Meatball will never be President.
Indiana is one state where I believe they are getting it wrong. Throwing up their hands and saying it’s inevitable. Yeah, right! I don’t think so.
DeSantis has been our best governor - he’s turned our state from kinda blue or purple into totally red. What’s your issue with him?
good. let big data power their own.
Bump.
Living in Florida is a consolation prize to watching America melt down over the last years.
So glad to live here.
“ Why can’t this be recycled.”
Almost all of it is. I used to design the cooling systems for data centers. Some is lost to evaporation but the vast majority is recovered and reused.
L
Do you do stand up comedy? Because that is funny.
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