The governors of Hokkaido and Shimane indicated their approval Friday of plans by utilities to build new nuclear reactors in their prefectures.

The decisions by Hokkaido Gov. Tatsuya Hori and Shimane Gov. Nobuyoshi Sumita are the first approval for construction of new nuclear plants since the deadly criticality accident last September at a uranium fuel plant in Tokai, Ibaraki Prefecture.

Early Friday, Hori hinted to the Hokkaido Prefectural Assembly that he may approve Hokkaido Electric Power Co.'s plan to construct a new reactor at its nuclear plant in the village of Tomari, west of Sapporo.

Later in the day, Sumita, speaking at a session of the Shimane Prefectural Assembly, said he supports a proposed move by Chugoku Electric Power Co. to submit to the central government's Electric Power Development Coordination Council a plan to add another reactor to its Shimane nuclear complex.

Chugoku Electric Power, which owns two reactors at its plant in the town of Kashima, on the Sea of Japan coast, plans to build a third reactor with generating capacity of 1,373 megawatts there. The two reactors presently generate 460 megawatts and 820 megawatts.

Speaking at the Hokkaido assembly's ad hoc budget committee meeting, Hori said, "We will have to depend on the (plan's) current trustworthiness in considering the appropriateness of the capacity expansion plan."

While Hori is expected to make a final decision after taking into account the opinions of the four local governments involved, including the village of Tomari, his remarks indicate that construction of a third reactor at the plant will be approved, political sources in Hokkaido said.

In the past, Hori has been noncommittal about the project.

However, at the meeting held in the early hours of Friday, he said, "It's necessary to achieve a stable supply of electricity to improve the standard of living of Hokkaido people. To this end, we need to develop a new electricity source of about 900 megawatts to cope with the expected maximum power demand in and after fiscal 2008."

Construction of the reactor -- a pressurized light water reactor with an anticipated generating capacity of 912 megawatts -- is expected to start in 2002 with commercial operations scheduled for 2008, according to the utility's plan.

Hokkaido Electric Power has two reactors of the same type in operation, each with a generating capacity of 579 megawatts, covering about 30 percent of the electricity needs of all Hokkaido.

Construction of a new reactor has been a contentious issue ever since Hokkaido Electric Power unveiled the plan in July 1998.

Business circles in Hokkaido and Liberal Democratic Party assemblymen, the largest force in the assembly, have demanded its early construction.

But citizens' groups opposing the plan collected some 790,000 signatures to demand a plebiscite on the project and presented them to Hori last month.

Also, a group of Hokkaido University researchers recommended that the plan be postponed by about three years.

The Tokai accident claimed the lives of two workers who triggered a self-sustaining nuclear fission chain reaction at the plant by pouring too much uranium into a tank using procedures that deviated from government-approved methods.

Hundreds of people were exposed to higher-than-normal levels of radiation in the accident.

In February, Chubu Electric withdrew plans to build a nuclear plant in Mie Prefecture after Mie Gov. Masayasu Kitagawa said the project should be scrapped.

Kitagawa cited the fact that public sentiment toward nuclear energy had been "increasingly negative" since a recent string of technical problems at nuclear plants, including the Tokai disaster.