ST. FRANCISVILLE -- The River Bend Nuclear Generating Station will turn 40 years old next year, and federal regulators say it can continue operations for another couple of decades.

"We're closing in on 40 years. We do have approval to go another 20 years past that, and then about halfway through, right around year 50, that's when we'll be submitting the application to operate for another 20 past that, so year 60-80," Site Vice President Philip Hansett said.

WBRZ got the chance to visit the Station, where its representatives talked about the future of River Bend.

While the basics of nuclear power generation have remained the same, the Riverbend plant is adopting new technology suited to the digital world.

"We have in our next refueling outage some modifications for our reactor control and information systems that will enhance the ability to do surveillance and testing at a much quicker rate," River Bend Plant Manager Rob Melton said.

A refueling outage is essentially around every two years; the plant, which is owned and operated by Entergy, brings in thousands of contractors to refuel the nuclear reactor. Melton says it allows them to run continuously for another 24 months.

"The most recent outage, we did upgrade our main generator and did several improvements to our transformers as well that will allow us to continue to generate power for the extended license period," Melton said.

The plant uses water from the Mississippi River.

"We use the nuclear reactor to make steam. Steam then goes to a condenser and to cool that steam and put it back into the reactor. We use the water from the Mississippi, so it's basically a single pass. We provide at Riverbend enough electricity for just under one million homes," Hansett said.

It's able to take in and discharge around 15,000 to 18,000 gallons of water per minute. River Bend says that another large part of its future is educating the public in the work it does at the station.

We've had groups of Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, high school and college groups that have come through to do tours (at our simulator room), and we also spend time out in the community, out at the schools," Melton said.

Additionally, AI will play a role in their future as well.

"Right now, we're embracing AI and seeing how we can use AI to help trend and monitor the plants so that we can go after issues and be smarter and more economical with the maintenance that we do," Hansett said.

WBRZ also spoke with people around West Feliciana who remember when the plant was being built and first opened.

"I graduated from high school here during the time the nuclear plant was being built, and all through high school, there was some opposition to it, but I think it's the best thing to ever happen to our parish," Mary Ellen Daniel said.

While questions were raised in the past decade over whether Entergy nuclear plants produce power reliably, federal regulators assessed plant safety while considering license renewals.