Can coal be cleaned?

ANDREW DeWIT, Professor at Rikkyo University declares that claims of "clean coal" as a sustainable source of energy by the coal lobby were patently false stating that 'cleaning' coal would raise its unit cost comparable to that of wind and solar energy and would also raise environmental pollution and groundwater damage alongwith health issues for mine-workers. In an article for the Asia-Pacific Journal, "The Mirage of Clean Coal and the Technological Alternatives", he concludes that "clean coal" was inherently not a sustainable kind of energy economy and such claims were the desperate strategies of an industry whose time was now over.