CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Brutal competitive financial forces are poised to remake FirstEnergy into a utility without power plants and focused solely on delivering electricity.

The Akron-based power company that a decade ago hired former George W. Bush administration Solicitor General Ted Olson to bully state lawmakers who were considering a return to state-regulated power prices now appears ready to sell or close its remaining coal and nuclear power plants because the state won't subsidize them and neither will federal authorities.

Those include Perry nuclear plant in Lake County east of Cleveland and Davis-Besse in Ottawa County near Toledo.

The draconian move may come in a corporate "restructuring" plan that could get under way next week in a federal bankruptcy court, either here or any other federal jurisdiction where the company has offices.

FirstEnergy Solutions, the debt-ridden subsidiary that owns the corporation's power plants, would be seeking Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. FirstEnergy Nuclear Operating Co., a separate FirstEnergy subsidiary that holds the federal nuclear operating licenses, could also be involved.

Bankruptcy cases can take several years and spawn parallel litigation by unhappy creditors, said Marvin Sicherman, a Case Western Reserve University adjunct law professor and bankruptcy attorney for nearly 58 years handling cases in 42 of the 50 states.

"You are looking at a classic nightmare case," said Sicherman. "If they file this case, I hope I live long enough to see it all the way through."

If the nuclear power plants were sold in bankruptcy, the potential buyer would have to be approved by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. If there were no buyers, closing the plants would throw as many as 1,500 employees out of a job and send a shock through northern Ohio's economy.

The NRC allows up to 60 years to decommission and demolish the plants and then clean up the sites -- decades during which the land could not be redeveloped.

Worse, say environmental groups poised to intervene if the plants are closed, neither the NRC nor state authorities, nor the public, would have much input about the clean-up. The NRC does hold a public hearing when a plant is shut and will send radiation inspectors to the plant periodically to make sure the cleanup is done according to the commission's regulations. But full-time resident inspectors would be sent elsewhere.

If the company follows the usual path taken by other utilities that have shut down old nuclear plants, it will begin by removing the nuclear fuel from the reactor, placing it in the adjacent "spent fuel" cooling pools, locking the doors of the containment building and continuing to pay guards. The NRC calls this SAFSTOR and sees it as a good first step to allow radioactivity to subside.

FirstEnergy Solutions has investments in required decommission trust funds for each plant that totaled nearly $1.9 billion as of Dec. 31, 2017. That would be enough to cover the decommissioning costs of Perry, Davis-Besse and the twin reactor Beaver Valley plant near Pittsburgh, the parent company wrote in its latest Securities and Exchange Commission filing. The NRC must still review that assertion.

The adequacy of the trust fund assumes the plants continue operating until the current licenses run out, a handful of years or decades from now. The company's SEC filing therefore warns investors that FirstEnergy could be liable for more money in the future if decommissioning costs escalate or the trust fund investments lose money.

That the bankruptcy now appears inevitable stems from several actions and statements FirstEnergy has made.

Top company executives in February made it clear to investors that FirstEnergy would not be loaning additional money from an internal corporate money pool to FirstEnergy Solutions after March 31. FirstEnergy Solutions and the nuclear operating company withdrew from the pool on March 16, owing the pool $4 million, according to an SEC filing made this week. On March 9, in a separate credit agreement reported to the SEC, Solutions borrowed $500 million from FirstEnergy in a separate arrangement.

FirstEnergy Solutions faces an April 2 deadline to make a $100 million payment to bond holders. And that's just a down payment on the company's total reported debt of more than $2.8 billion, most of it unsecured, meaning repayment is not guaranteed with collateral. The company owes another $1.7 billion to its parent, though some of it is long-term debt.

Because FirstEnergy Solutions has a bond rating of "likely to default," the parent company's announcement that it would cut off the subsidiary's access to internal loans instantly prepped analysts to expect FirstEnergy Solutions to seek bankruptcy protection before April 1.

FirstEnergy has said for at least the past 18 months that its goal is to become a completely regulated business, meaning in Ohio and most of the other states where it serves 6 million customers, it would not own power plants. The main exception is West Virginia, which has remained an old-fashioned regulated state where power prices are set by utility regulators.

FirstEnergy's February SEC filing includes three pages detailing potential risks the company would face in its "transition to a fully regulated utility."

Potential problems included "the risk that FirstEnergy could be required to satisfy or otherwise elect to guarantee significant financial obligations of FES or its subsidiaries, which could adversely affect the financial condition and cash flows of FirstEnergy."

The company also flatly states in the SEC filing that bankruptcy is an option:

"There is Substantial Uncertainty as to FES' Ability to Continue as a Going Concern and Substantial Risk That It May be Necessary for FirstEnergy Solutions and FENOC (FirstEnergy Nuclear Operating Co.) to Seek Protection Under U.S. Bankruptcy Laws, Which Would Have a Material Adverse Impact on FirstEnergy's and FES' Business, Financial Condition, Results of Operations and Cash Flows," the filing warns.