Are there any current economic studies for mid-American cities
comparing the alternatives of investing in the construction of a coal
fired power plant for power generation versus investing in upgrading
the electrical power grid to improve reliability so that purchasing
power becomes a manageable risk?
City at issue: Springfield, MO

Funny, I think I have seen something like that before.  Someone COOP
president was giving a deposition on the subject to justify building a
coal plant.

Anyway, the utilities/coops have to run these type of analysis to
support their investment decision.  It is sometimes public
information.  I would contact the Missori PUC or search google.  You
may need to do deeper web searches to the utilities/coops level.  This
is a digging project.

Longshot, try to contact someone at epri (Electric Power Research
Institute)  They perform these type of studies sometimes.

This is a hot issue in CT, (not coal though)
Good Luck, Paul (non paid researcher)