KEY POINTS:
Two professorships at Massey University have won government funding for wide-ranging research of "biochar".
Research overseas has shown that turning wood or other plant material into charcoal and burying it in soils cannot only keep carbon dioxide from reaching the atmosphere, but also help soil organisms extract more carbon from the atmosphere.
And the economic viability of the process can be improved if the biochar is made as a by-product of extracting biofuels from forestry "slash" and other waste.
The concept of improving soils with charcoal is ancient - there are theories that it was heavily used for centuries to improve poor 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 storage of biochar in soil is being eyed as "carbon negative", according to an American researcher, Johannes Lehmann, an associate professor of crops and soil sciences at Cornell University.
"Emissions reductions can be 12 to 84 per cent greater if biochar is put back into the soil instead of being burned to offset fossil-fuel use," he said.
The New Zealand research was announced yesterday by Forestry Minister Jim Anderton, who said 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.
This 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.
Everything from chicken droppings to municipal organic waste can be partially converted into these components through pyrolysis.
Professor Mike Hedley, who with Dr Attilio Pigneri led the scientists, engineers, life cycle economists and research consultants that developed the proposal, said the proposal to establish a New Zealand Biochar Research Centre received enthusiastic support.
Two world-leading academics will be recruited to the professorship positions early next year, he said.
"They will lead wide-ranging research and development," Prof Hedley said.
There was scope for collaboration with other New Zealand and overseas universities, state science companies, and industry including engineering, energy, agriculture, forestry, and fertiliser manufacturing and distribution companies as well as with regional government and community groups.
Funding for the initiative was through the Sustainable Land Management and Climate Change Plan of Action, and will be administered by the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry (MAF).
The initiative will be organised into three closely linked streams: pyrolysis plant and biochar engineering, soil science and biochar, and biochar and greenhouse gas mitigation strategies, Massey University said in a statement.
- NZPA
