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[Rorax]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peat

It's a source of fuel thats been used for a very long time, and it's used widely gardeners as it's a mineral rice source.
But instead of my trying to make a case for it, go ahead and look at the wiki link above to read up on it.

my proposition is that in low land high vegetation areas (wetland bogs, moors, muskegs, pocosins, mires)
That there be potentially a layer just below the top soil.
With it having the properties of soil by not being able to be smoothed, and it being structurally weak.
But leaving behind the "Peat" resource, which could be used to enrich farms, and used as a charcoal substitute in forges.

[Derakon]

Peat layers exist, but aren't usable right now (they behave like all other non-sand soil layers). The suggestion to make them extractable has been made several times in the past, pretty much identical to your suggestion. It'll probably happen eventually, I suspect around about when sand starts being treated like a very slow-flowing liquid and sand for glass actually uses up the sand; at that point, you could start making "peat extraction" activity zones or something similar.

[QuakeIV]

Awesome.

[Pilsu]

used as a charcoal substitute in forges.

No.

[Grendus]

The consensus was that it wouldn't be used as a coal substitute. I don't know if it's even possible to process peat into a coal substitute, but since there are no references anywhere to a culture ever doing this, it's a safe bet no.

However, when fuels are needed for things like heating and cooking, it would presumably be useable as a fuel substitute for those.

[atomfullerene]

It's clearly possible to process peat into coal....all it takes is a few million years, heating, and geological pressure

[Sean Mirrsen]

Dwarves can substitute all that for a smelter and some handiwork. In gameplay terms, two lumps of peat make two charcoal. There's already a mod for that. [/shameless plug]

[qoonpooka]

Dwarves can substitute all that for a smelter and some handiwork. In gameplay terms, two lumps of peat make two charcoal. There's already a mod for that. [/shameless plug]

A more realistic conversion would be 2 peat + 1 refined coal = 2 ref coal.

[Sean Mirrsen]

That's exactly what it does. It takes two peat lumps and makes two charcoal while consuming one coal as fuel.

[Rorax]

The reason I suggested it as a coal substitute is that because, right now their isn't any other "burning fuel" consumption other than metal work.(oh and kilns and glass manufacture)

I totally agree that peat is better suit to rolls in heating stone ovens, and brewing stills. However. Because that doesn't currently exist I thought the best way to represent peat as a burning fuel was to use it as a coal substitute.

However! in saying that.

I think 2 peat + 1 coal = 2 coal

Is a even better solution. However somehow I think that burning the peat to make more charcoal defeats the point in a nitrogen rich fuel source in the first place

Peat was often used to make a burn last much longer. So it's quite possible that Toady might like to find a way to "Seed" your forge/kiln (like you do farms with potash) with peat in order to reduce the coal/charcoal needed in production by 1/2?

[Shurhaian]

The problem with the "2 peat --(fuel)--> 2 refined coal" schematic is the same as the problem with a flat extension on how far peat goes at the smelter: it doesn't take magma into consideration.

Currently, coal that is used as a reagent will also work as the fuel. At such time as this can change, I can certainly understand low-temperature fuels such as peat being used to extend the burn of non-magma forges, and to power other lower-temperature applications like cooking and distilling.

If the logic being applied to thread and cloth(that they have lengths/volumes associated with them) also applies to "bars" of fuel, a unit of a particular fuel might last longer for some applications than others(a unit of coke might last for a dozen cooking tasks, but be gulped up entirely in a fuelled smelting operation, while somewhat less might be required as the carbon component for making steel). This would also be making use of an already-implemented mechanic rather than making a special case for forges, and I think that generalizing such things tends to be better than just making more special cases.