The Daily Signal - Let's try Nuclear Data Centers Right Outside Virginia's Capital City?

Episode Date: September 10, 2025

Tuesday evening Richmond’s channel 6 news viewers heard the headline; “Goochland County residents voice concerns over proposed data center and nuclear reactor development.”  While anti-data center protests are growing more common, a proposed nuclear reactor?  After looking further in, it appears that the concerns might be based on extrapolations of several things proposed in a ne “Technology Overlay District” for Goochland County’s already existing commercial development areas.  Nevertheless, we sat down with Jennie Slade from the Goochland Economic Development Authority to find out what is proposed. Keep Up With The Daily Signal   Sign up for our email newsletters:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://www.dailysignal.com/email⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠     Subscribe to our other shows:    The Tony Kinnett Cast: ⁠https://megaphone.link/THEDAILYSIGNAL2284199939⁠ The Signal Sitdown: ⁠https://megaphone.link/THEDAILYSIGNAL2026390376⁠   Problematic Women:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠https://megaphone.link/THEDAILYSIGNAL7765680741⁠   Victor Davis Hanson: ⁠https://megaphone.link/THEDAILYSIGNAL9809784327⁠     Follow The Daily Signal:    X:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠https://x.com/intent/user?screen_name=DailySignal⁠ Instagram:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://www.instagram.com/thedailysignal/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠  Facebook:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://www.facebook.com/TheDailySignalNews/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠  Truth Social:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://truthsocial.com/@DailySignal⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠  YouTube:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/dailysignal?sub_confirmation=1⁠    Subscribe on your favorite podcast platform and never miss an episode. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Thanks for listening to this bonus episode of the Daily Signal podcast. I'm your host, Joe Thomas, Virginia correspondent for The Daily Signal. Before we dive into today's interview, I want to thank you for tuning in today. If you're a first-time listener, The Daily Signal, brings you fact-based reporting and conservative commentary on politics, policy, and culture. And I hope you join our band of regular listeners to our podcast. If you enjoy the show, please subscribe and also take a moment to rate and review us wherever you get your podcast.

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We'd love to talk, business. If you scan some of the news sites headlines, or if you happen to watch the first five minutes of any evening newscast, you might think nuclear-powered data centers are coming to Gutsland County and or anything short of Iron Man's new headquarters and manufacturing facilities. That isn't the case. And to explain what really is going on in Gutsland County and with these technology overlay districts is Jenny Slade from the Economic Development Authority. Jenny, thank you for taking some time out with us. How are you doing today? Doing great. Enjoying this beautiful day and working on getting things done.

Yes. So are there nuclear power data centers coming as some of the TV stations in Richmond? seem to infer? Not that I'm aware of. And as a member of the Economic Development Authority, I think I would be aware. No, there are currently no plans, no active plans in Goochland for a data center or an SMR or a data center that's powered by an SMR. Yeah, it seems this whole situation has kind of gotten blown out of proportion from where it started and its intentions. Okay. The county and the EDA have worked together to develop the technology overly districts and the technology zones.

The purpose of this is to strategically attract some high power technology businesses and things like that with incentives and easier zoning and whatnot. So is this different than an economic development? development zone. I know that pad-ready sites, gosh, that's 15 years old rhetoric in Virginia, but, you know, is this bigger than, different than, you know, kind of just having these development zones within a planning district? These do offer some additional incentives and or restrictions depending, that different from the current M1 zoning restrictions. And, part of that is because we are trying to attract technology-focused businesses and know that they can be contentious and want to protect our residents. A lot of these new restrictions are

more restrictive than the current zoning. Oh, wow. Okay. Because I don't think the average, you know, resident knows that. Right. So the technology overlay district is largely focused in the West Creek Business Park, which was developed and zoned back in 1987. There are a few parcels that are outside of West Creek up closer to the quarries and whatnot near 64. So that's an industrial area. And all of this is a designated growth area for Guchland County. Guchland has committed to an 8515 approach where 85 of our county, we want to maintain rule. And so we have limited our development to 15% of the county, and this technology overlay district is that its designated growth area in the east end of the county.

What a lot of people don't know is that West Creek has been zoned M1, light industrial since 1987, and data center use was added in 2014 by right. So currently in West Creek, a property owner could develop their property to be a data center and, you know, never have to go before the board of supervisors or the planning commission. Right. That's what by right means if people see this in a column that may be written and they say the because it seemed like some of the protests or against allowing by right development, which was always there. I didn't know how far back it went. Thank you for pre-answering that question. Yes. So the technology overlay district does things like put additional restrictions on data center heights setbacks noise there's currently no noise restriction for data centers in west creek

this puts noise restrictions in different green space requirements all of that kind of stuff is made more restrictive in the technology overlay district and i think the confusion with the fmr thing is that it was added to the ordinance to allow for fmr's um The small modular reactors for... Correct. Yes. Because one of the things that the EDA has been very focused on with data centers is how do we mitigate this power problem? We don't want to add to the problem. If a data center were to ever come to Goocheland, we don't want to add to that power draw problem we're having in Virginia.

And so what does that look like? Well, that looks like data centers bringing their own power, which is starting to become a thing. They're able to do on-site power generation, and that alleviates the grid. So I believe that was added to kind of help facilitate any additional technologies in the future that could come online to power data centers. Makes sense. And I think it's important to recognize that there are zero SMRs in the United States right now. And from what I understand, the technology is not even completely ready. Right.

Well, and it's because, you know, and Governor Youngkin did a very good job from where I sit of promoting this idea. And you're putting it into the context of we're making something similar to this already. They're called nuclear-powered ships and that Virginia already has most of the infrastructure to make these sort of things available if they become commercially viable. And I guess that's the next question is, do they become? and it seems like, and I guess this is where we wound up in Goocheland this week, is that the conflagration of data centers with their AI generated power requirements and the need of bespoke power from them at a large amount might lead somebody to believe that that would be the case, especially I think in Pennsylvania where one of the Three Mile Island reactors was

restarted by Microsoft for one of their data center. in Pennsylvania. So I guess all those things can sort of, you know, become narrative and then people start to think that this is what the plan is, maybe? I guess that could be it. I know locally in Goochland, a lot of it was, I'm sure, well-intentioned activists, just having the wrong message and spreading the wrong message and that creating panic. And it also came from homeowners that are around the West Creek Business Park.

But, you know, we have to balance that there are a residence there. However, West Creek was there first and is our designated business park. It is where the county has chosen to develop industry. And it's unfortunate that the neighborhoods weren't properly set up to avoid this kind of conflict. Is that the bigger issue more than its data centers and nuclear. power, which are certainly flashpoint topics. Jenny Slade is on with us from the Economic Development Authority in Gutsland County. And, you know, it's one thing to say, hey, there might be more business coming to Gutschelein County doesn't really draw a crowd. You say big scary data

center with a nuclear power plant next to it, you get a pretty good crowd with sign waving. But it sounds more like an issue where people build houses, you know, back in my day, you know, you'd build houses by the airport and then start protesting the flight patterns of the airplanes. Is that kind of what it is right now? People built near an industrial park and now don't like it? That's my personal opinion, yes, is that we had some neighborhoods that were put in some spots that I personally would not have picked. For example, we have a new Amazon distribution center going in on Ashland Road. And there is a neighborhood almost across the street, and they were very against this due to the traffic, which I completely understand. But what I don't understand is why a neighborhood was built in an industrial zone next to a rock quarry.

and how homeowners don't understand that that's an industrial area, therefore, this is what you should expect. But I think that is a large part of the problem. That I think people not understanding economic development in general, I think, are the bigger issues here. Well, I don't know how it is in Goochland County. So tell us, because in Albemarle County, by ordinance, only 5% of all the real property, in the county is available for development. How much of Goochland County, you mentioned, you know, you wanted to keep as 8515, but how much is, whether it be commercial or residential, how much overall is available to develop

in Goochland County, and how much of that is even still open? So the county's goal is the 8515, so only 15% of our property is to be. be developed. And I honestly, at this point, don't know where we are at that in that goal. I know we're not maxed out. But on top of that, the county has also kind of set a goal of a 70-30 tax split where 30% of our taxes would come from commercial or business or industry. And we're not there yet. We're more at an 80, 20, maybe 85 at this point. But we've, we've do need some more of those bigger manufacturing or whatever it may be to balance out that tax income. And I think what a lot of people might not know is that by doing that, we can keep our

property taxes low. We have one of the lowest tax rates in the area. I think the lowest tax rate in the area, especially for how fast regional is growing. That's pretty amazing. And we want to keep it that way, while also being able to add extra services and needs that our citizens up. Upsell Goochland, because, you know, where it sits really has a lot of opportunities. There are counties that have the kind of opportunities. In the 1800s, you wanted to have, you know, property near where the railroad track was going to be because there was a chance of town growing up there and commerce and that kind of thing. Nowadays, the commerce is done on the interstates.

And Gugland, I think, is uniquely placed to be able to tap into a couple of, you know, major travel routes to create that kind of industry without. I know there was a comment made to one of the TV stations about heavy industry, which invokes images of smokestacks and, you know, industry that really honestly doesn't exist even in the manufacturing world anymore. But to upsell Goochland's positioning for that kind of commerce, Jenny? Well, you're correct. Gitchland is very uniquely positioned. In the last few years, we've been in the top three to top five, I believe, for fastest-growing localities in Virginia. And I think that's because Charlottesville and Richmond, I think, are trying to meet in the

middle, and that's Guchland County. You know, from my house, it's the same distance to Charlottesville is to downtown Richmond. And we've seen both localities slowly creeping further out to the point now where, you know, Richmond is all the way into Goochland with Shore Pump and all of the neighborhood development around there. So I do think that being right there on that 64-95 corridor uniquely positions us to welcome these businesses and industry. And I think we're a little more prepared with infrastructure as well as far as spaces that still have space available or low localities that still have space available with infrastructure.

You know, there in West Creek we have the Tocahoe Service District for water. Right. So there is water down there. And bringing industry in like manufacturing or whatever it may be helps us pay off that debt quicker, therefore, or lowering that agglom tax that's attached to that for the residents in that area. And that's an important thing to remember is the idea of taking the burden off of the homeowners and many of whom will work at these places. We've seen that with some of the Amazon centers and other distribution networks, UPS and that kind of thing,

that it does turn into a job creator in that area. Also, you know, if there was a data center, you know, these things are job creators as well, not maybe so much in the data center, but in the service of the data centers, which already trafficked 70% of all the internet traffic on the planet go through Virginia at some point or another already. and I think that, you know, as you said, this idea of a technology overlay district is perhaps concerned people, set up a red flag. What does, you know, and I know I kind of took us off on a tangent at the onset. Tell us the specifics of these TODs and what they would provide for in these already development areas. So the TOD would, look back in my notes here, the TOD would increase the buffer zones necessary. Currently, I believe it's a 50 or 100 foot buffer for data centers. It would be 300.

Okay. It limits the height of the buildings. Currently, I think it goes up 100 to 120 feet. and there are different requirements that would have different height requirements for the businesses in the zone. There's currently no noise restrictions. The technology overlay district would increase those or create noise restrictions rather. But mostly it's to tell technology businesses, hey, we have a space for you and here it is. And we want you here so badly that we're going to make it known and make it part of what we're doing and who we are.

So come on. Let's go. Let's do this. I think it's a good message to send. And have you had any interest from that? Or is this just at such an early phase that that's still way off in the distance? I think, I mean, we've had technology businesses looking at the parcels. You know, we work closely with the statewide economic development.

organization as well. And when they get requests from large industries or whatever, they will, you know, Gushlin is on their list of what's available. So we have people coming through all the time. We don't currently have anything, I believe, that is going to really take advantage of this yet, but I know that we want to bring that in.

Well, Jenny Wood, thank you so much for taking a little time out. And, you know, I hate to do this to my friends in the media again, put the reality stick to what was a pretty good clickbait kind of 24-hour cycle with the headlines there. So I do appreciate it. And I'm glad to hear that folks are looking to bring jobs into the central Virginia area. Yes, that's our goal. Let's keep our people in central Virginia and give them high-paying technology jobs that will give them an excellent way of lunch. Well, we look forward to talking to you again very soon. Thank you so much.

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