Japan Says It Can Make Coal Cleaner. Critics Say Its Plan Is ‘Almost Impossible.’

The world’s advanced economies have committed to phasing out coal over the next seven years. But not Japan, which stands alone insisting it can make coal less damaging to the planet.
Nowhere is that more evident than at the nation’s largest coal-fired power plant in Hekinan, a small city in central Japan where 400,000 tons of jet-black piles are spread across a plot the size of 40 soccer fields.
Starting next spring, Jera, the company that owns the site, wants to demonstrate that it can blend ammonia — which does not emit carbon dioxide when burned — with coal in its boilers. 
The use of this new technology is prompting a debate over whether it is better to find cleaner ways of using coal or to scrap it as soon as possible in favor of renewable energy.