Name: Brown Charcoal
Description: In addition to cooking wood into charcoal, ancient peoples (especially those in rainforests with lots of leafy but not so woody vegetation) would perform a similar drying/charring process on green vegetation. In Minecraft, we have such green vegetation in Saplings, Cactus, and Reeds, and we presently run through a complicated process of jumbling the plants together into balls, compressing them, liquefying and extracting them into liquid fuel. Of course, we could use them as is, but they're rather bulky and we have to keep refueling whatever machine is taking them.
As an alternative to these choices, I propose that we can take four plantballs, craft them in a square to make a plant chunk or a plant pile, which can then be cooked in a furnace to yield "brown" charcoal that is equal in power to "black" charcoal that can be obtained from wood. Yes, it is less energy efficient than using the plants whole or by making fuel out of them, but it's much less bulky than using the plants whole and less difficult/doesn't use up tin like the biofuel cycle.
Energy Breakdown: 32 reeds or cactus * 50 heat value = 16 saplings * 100 heat value = 1 "brown" charcoal * 1600 heat value = 1600 heat value = 4000 EU
1 furnace smelt = 208 EU - 390 EU or 160/200 heat
tl;dr recipe: 4 plantballs in a square > plant chunk / plant pile > (furnace) > "brown" charcoal
Alternative recipe if required for balance: 4 compressed plantballs > plant chunk > (furnace) > "brown" charcoal
Alternative Suggestion: Plantballs directly useable as fuel, one quarter as effective as coal/charcoal (as that is the energy they contain, considering the reeds/saplings used), or to cook a plantball in a furnace to produce an item with 1/4 the effectiveness as coal/charcoal.
