In China, the situation is more dire because they are hell bent on expanding and nothing will stop them.

And thats exactly why a hyper-expensive coal technology will be even more ignored than an expensive renewable technology.

The only thing we can hope to do is scale up renewables, such that we can lower the price.

Since Coal on the other hand, cannot be both clean and cheap at the same time.

Since Coal on the other hand, cannot be both clean and cheap at the same time.

Sorry to break it to you, but coal can never be clean... period.

You can scrub out the impurities so that they are not included in the combustion process.  However you are left with a toxic sludge of all those impurities.  Law of conservation of matter: "matter cannot be created/destroyed, although it may be rearranged".  So rather than have those toxins locked in coal harmlessly trapped below the surface you can have it in the air or as a sludge to deal with.

As for carbon capture... oh boy, where to begin.  Where are you going to put all this compressed carbon dioxide you capture?  Sink barrels to the bottom of the sea?  How long will it be trapped?  Will those barrels leak eventually?  Will that contribute to ocean acidification?  Carbon capture is not a SUSTAINABLE solution.  At best it is a stop gap until we further develop RENEWABLE energy production to the point it can fill our needs.  To devote obscene financial resources and pin the worlds hopes on carbon capture technology is utter stupidity.  Your just entrenching fossil fuels and ultimately the issue is not solved.

I agree with that.

But I'd rather have a cleaner coal plant burning coal then a dirtier one. It's better to capturing and landfilling that crap then it is to be breathing it, killing our trees it, and making our cities covered with haze.

The future of energy needs to be in renewables. But we need to clean up existing plants, until we can fully phase them out.

A "clean" coal plant can mean one of two things. Some coal plants emit more sulfur and other non-carbon pollutants than others. These pollutants contribute to acid rain and other problems, and old plants tend to emit more than new ones. Old or new coal plants can be outfitted with "scrubbers" that remove some of the sulfur, mercury and other pollutants and stop them from exiting into the atmosphere. These scrubbers exist and are relatively cost-effective at removing some, if not all, of these non-carbon pollutants.
However, the only way to stop a coal plant form emitting carbon dioxide, the greenhouse gas, is by capturing and sequestering the carbon. This process is not currently under way anywhere, and its not entirely clear whether it ever will be. It is prohibitively expensive, at least for the moment, and it has not been proven to be safe. Certian scientific or enginnering breakthorughs could make it a real possibilty, though, which would allow us to burn coal without contributing to global climate change. FutureGen's clean coal plant will, supposedly, use carbon capture and sequestration while producing electricity.