Well I was thinking that if coal is a fuel why can't you put a bit of coal dust into a furnace and use it as a fuel.
Now I'm rubbish at balancing but I think that the coal bust would burn for about 75 seconds (about 7.5 smelts) since a bit of the coal was lost in the process of macerating.
If you have any feedback please post!! 
[Edit] I forgot that you don't get 2 coal dust ( it was actually one )in macerating coal in the process so it will be 7.5 smelts! Sorry!!
If you lose half the burn time in the process, then why not just keep the coal (dust) for a nanosuit?
Coal dust as fuel? Logically speaking that would be too explosive. (literally)
If you dont need the dust then dont macerate it.
Why not hydrate the coal dust, with 8 of them around a bucket of water, then mix it with redstone and a copper cable?
How about hydrate it, combine it with cells, extract it, can it, and burn the fuel?
Coal dust as fuel? Logically speaking that would be too explosive. (literally)
If you dont need the dust then dont macerate it.
Well you could still burn the coal-clumps used to create diamonds... or if we are going this directions, why not directly burn the diamonds? As much coal as we put into them they should be huge and would burn for an awful lot of energy.
Well you could still burn the coal-clumps used to create diamonds... or if we are going this directions, why not directly burn the diamonds? As much coal as we put into them they should be huge and would burn for an awful lot of energy.
I don't think burning Diamonds is very realistic- Even for Minecraft. (Ignoring the EE AntiMatter Relay here, at least.)
Actually, part of 'cleaning' coal is by grinding it up as a dust, and feeding it thru a pipe system with water where the Sulfur impurities could be separated out of the coal prior to burning... This way, you lower the concentration of harmful elements in coal and only have to deal with a CO2 byproduct...
IF pollution were to be instituted into IC-MC, then I could see a use where macerating coal could reduce your pollution output with fossil fuel burning. However, until such system is in place, I see no point in including this...
But on another related note: You could just recompress macerated coal back into it's 'ingot' state if you chew thru too many at a time, lol...
This idea makes me remember about how can you burn coal dust in BTW.
Wow it seems that my thread got popular. 
The idea of the compressing of coal into ingots is a good one ( thanks MagusUnion!!! )
I wont be replying a lot to this thread because I'm very busy with school and other things, so if someone starts to stir up a fight fell free to close this thread ( I hope that I didn't jinx it )...
This idea makes me remember about how can you burn coal dust in BTW.
Well of course you could burn coal-dust. But you need a somehow controlled environment to do so.
Pressing 4 pieces of coal-dust into a briquette seems reasonable since we have the machines around to do this. This could just improve the value of coal a little bit (maybe burning for 20.000 EU instead of the 4 pieces of coal burning for 16.000 since you need to macerate 4 times and compress once). Seems reasonable and it seems to fit the industrial concept. It would also give the player the ability to turn his back on his generators while keeping them stuffed with briquettes.
Well of course you could burn coal-dust. But you need a somehow controlled environment to do so.
Pressing 4 pieces of coal-dust into a briquette seems reasonable since we have the machines around to do this. This could just improve the value of coal a little bit (maybe burning for 20.000 EU instead of the 4 pieces of coal burning for 16.000 since you need to macerate 4 times and compress once). Seems reasonable and it seems to fit the industrial concept. It would also give the player the ability to turn his back on his generators while keeping them stuffed with briquettes.
/signed
Why not hydrate the coal dust, with 8 of them around a bucket of water, then mix it with redstone and a copper cable?
How about hydrate it, combine it with cells, extract it, can it, and burn the fuel?
Less efficient than just burning the coal. Burning fuel=bad idea. You end up with massive wastes.
