Two professorships at Massey University have won Government funding for wide-ranging research of "biochar".
Studies overseas have shown that turning wood or other plant material into charcoal and burying it in soils can not only keep carbon dioxide from reaching the atmosphere, but also help soil organisms extractmore carbon from the atmosphere.
And the economic viability of the process can be improved if the biochar is made as a by-product of biofuels from forestry "slash" and other waste.
The concept of improving soils with charcoal is ancient - there are theories that it was used for centuries to improve soils in the Amazon - but it has been revived in modern times, partly because of the potential to claim soil reservoirs of carbon as "sinks" in climate change mitigation schemes.
The New Zealand research was announced last week by Forestry Minister Jim Anderton, who said the establishment of the two professorships was an important step on the path towards New Zealand becoming a low-carbon nation.
One will focus on biochar and its behaviour in New Zealand soils, and the other on processing of biomass feedstock into biochar.
Pyrolysis - burning wood in the absence of oxygen - can turn material such as wood chips and crop waste into three main components: gas (methane and hydrogen), a renewable "bio-oil" that can be used as a fuel or for "green" chemical production, and a char that contains roughly 60 per cent of the carbon contained in the biomass.
