The claim was made by Environment Canterbury (ECan) commissioner David Bedford during debate over whether those building new houses to replace earthquake-damaged ones in Christchurch should be allowed to include a wood-burner.
While defending ECan's stance that they should not be allowed, Mr Bedford was quoted in The Press as saying his organisation believed "there are emerging wood-burning technologies that could allow the use of wood of any quality as a fuel, and could also tolerate poor operating by the user, to deliver no or ultra-low pollution to the air".
With several Otago urban centres having similar air-quality issues to Christchurch, the Otago Daily Times approached Mr Bedford's office for more information about the new technologies.
It was referred to a "downdraught burner" being developed by a Rangiora man, Roger Best.
Mr Best said he had provided all his information to Mr Bedford and he described to the ODT his 12 years of frustration at the hands of ECan and the Otago Regional Council.
He claimed that they had rejected the emission tests he had had done on his burner because they were not done to Australian or New Zealand standards.
However, he questioned the standards themselves and considered them inappropriate for the technology he was using.
"I've been locked out of the marketplace ... for getting on to 12 years by the dodgy use of rules and regulations to keep me out of it."
The Otago council's environmental information and science director, John Threlfall, said the council had dealt with Mr Best over the years and recalled a device to improve emissions he brought to the council about five years ago.
"He had the answer to all our problems. I said, 'fantastic, can you prove it?"'
Dr Threlfall said he had not been shown any test results and "nothing ever came of it".
Mr Best said testing of his burner had been done in 2002, 2003 and 2011, in Oamaru, and the council "should be fully aware" of the results.
When told of the attention now being given to Mr Best's latest device, Dr Threlfall said if Mr Best did come up with "the answer" and came to the council, it would look at it very seriously.
Mr Best said he would be happy to demonstrate his burner to Dr Threlfall.
While reluctant to criticise a burner he had not seen, general manager of Invercargill-based wood-burner manufacturer Yunca John Fry said there was nothing particularly new about downdraught burners, which used an electric fan to create a draft.
"They do burn very, very clean, but it's only at the top of the burn cycle.
"They may look very, very clean in the middle part when everything's really, really hot, but as soon as you load it up with fuel again, they just burn very, very dirty."
Yunca had done its own work on downdraught burners in the 20 or more years it had been designing and manufacturing solid fuel heaters.
Asked why Yunca was not still working with this technology, Mr Fry said fires had to be practical for domestic use.
"You can have a really clean burner if it's going like a blast furnace.
"To get your full burn, you need to be up around the 700 to 800degC mark and that's just not practical."
The "biggest thing" that could be done to improve air quality was for homeowners to use dry fuel, Mr Fry said.
Being "at least a year ahead" with firewood made "a massive, massive difference" to how cleanly a fire burned, how clean the glass stayed and how much ash was left, he said.
Mr Fry suggested councils randomly check firewood merchants selling "this supposedly bone-dry wood".
"If you are burning anything over about 20% moisture, half your effort is going into drying out the wood before it actually burns, and it does burn dirty."
While he welcomed new ideas in the area of wood-burner design, Mr Fry said, "If you had a dollar from everybody that had a brilliant idea, you would be a wealthy man.
You get all sorts coming through."
