  Motivated by learning from experience and exploiting existing knowledge in
civil nuclear operations, we have developed in-house generic PSA models for
pressurized and boiling water reactors. The models are computationally light,
handy, transparent, user-friendly, and easily adaptable to account for major
plant-specific differences. They cover the common internal initiating events,
frontline and support systems reliability and dependencies, human-factors,
common-cause failures, and account for new factors typically overlooked in many
developed PSAs. For quantification, the models use generic US reliability data,
precursor analysis reports and studies, the ETHZ Curated Nuclear Events
Database, and experts' opinions. Moreover, uncertainties in the most
influential basic events are addressed. The generated results show good
agreement with assessments available in the literature with detailed PSAs. We
envision the models as an unbiased framework to measure nuclear operational
risk with the same "ruler", and hence support inter-plant risk comparisons that
are usually not possible due to differences in plant-specific PSA assumptions
and scopes. The models can be used for initial risk screening,
order-of-magnitude precursor analysis, and other research and pedagogic
applications especially when no plant-specific PSAs are available. Finally, we
are using the generic models for large-scale precursor analysis that will
generate big picture trends, lessons, and insights.
