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[PaperJack]

It would be awesome, and more appropriate, for standard forges to use mechanical bellows though.  Charcoal and coke won't burn hot enough without extra oxygen.

perhaps you would require that to forge items in certain materials ?

[ajar]

Omg! Where's magmasteam energy! Little too futuristic for the dwarves.

[Qjet]

Er. My bad. This dwarf is not really up on his woodburning. On the other hand, would be appropriate for ash production.

It was the thought that counts, and it was a good thought. I would LOVE to see more mechanics been used around forts.
Craftsmen, masons, and jewlers connected to power sources use grinding wheels to improve quality and speed. Stills and dyers shops improve production capacity by using mechanical powered vats to stir ingredients! Of course this says more about the mechanics then anything

I really would like to make a mechanical elevator 

[Winterbrass]

One can never have too much machinery. The less time dwarves have to spend doing undwarvenly things like sewing or carving wood, the more time they have to practice swinging their axes and hammers around.

[Grax]

Waterwheels will give us electricity.
Electricity leads to galvanization.

[BigFatDwarf]

Craftsmen, masons, and jewlers connected to power sources...

Wait, what? Dwarves hooked up to waterwheels?

[Winterbrass]

Craftsmen, masons, and jewlers connected to power sources...

Wait, what? Dwarves hooked up to waterwheels?

I get the mental image of dwarfmechs which are water-pressure powered. This makes me make gleeful noises, despite the complete and utter impossibility of generating enough water pressure to do anything at all.

[Starver]

Friction-furnace.  Needs to be made of a meterial with a higher (i.e. a bit to spare) melting point than anything it is capable of heating, connect to waterweheel bank/windfarm (100s, if not 1000s, of power-units to operate - possibly increase according to the resulting temperature needed) and a number of mechanisms involved in construction (gearing down the available rotational energy to a slow but inexorable force to the "turning lump" of material that is made to rubbing against the "static smelter" lump (held/adjusted by a frame needing one or more further units of material) within which the target smeltee mass is processed.

This is of course a dry friction solution.  Liquids or granular product (=>glassmaking?) could be heated by vigorous 'paddling' (gearing towards speed, but probably need even more power to compensate for the lower torque, unless some trick could be incorporated) could be melted be a combination of surface, lubricative and fluid friction.

Cold forging is friction as well, but the friction within the block of the substance being hammered.

Other form of friction-like energy are probably available[1] or other ways of utilising.  Especially in a fantasy-esque genre.  And even before we come up with magic-mediated forms, perhaps like a 'heatpump'-like concentration of a lot of "slightly hotter"ness cooled to normal in order to create a little bit of "very hot" in a key component.  (Or even a lot of slight cooling from room temperature.)

[1] Down to neutron production/absorbtion, perhaps?  Probably depends on your definition.  That's not directly drivable by kinetic energy, though.

[Peewee]

...trees that take forever to grow back...

I annually destroy ~300 trees from the surface.
It's all in the biome... and keeping the weeds out of the way of the saplings.
Oh, and clever traffic designations to minimize trampling.

[Dr. Melon]

It'd be cool to have the ability to burn dead bodies into coke/charcoal.
Then sieges would be even better for us, since we get power to melt all their usless equipment.

[Silverionmox]

It'd be cool to have the ability to burn dead bodies into coke/charcoal.
Then sieges would be even better for us, since we get power to melt all their usless equipment.

Humanoid bodies typically contain too much moisture to be a good fuel, depending on the level of body fat. Burning mummies is no problem though.

An alternative heating source appropriate to dwarves could be lenses and sunlight. Making a sufficiently large lens and grinding it is quite a feat of craftsmanship, and the metal mirror to focus sunlight into it ain't no children's game either. These could also boil corpses dry, but if you need fuel that desperately, you're probably in the desert anyway.

[Winterbrass]

It'd be cool to have the ability to burn dead bodies into coke/charcoal.
Then sieges would be even better for us, since we get power to melt all their usless equipment.

Humanoid bodies typically contain too much moisture to be a good fuel, depending on the level of body fat. Burning mummies is no problem though.

An alternative heating source appropriate to dwarves could be lenses and sunlight. Making a sufficiently large lens and grinding it is quite a feat of craftsmanship, and the metal mirror to focus sunlight into it ain't no children's game either. These could also boil corpses dry, but if you need fuel that desperately, you're probably in the desert anyway.

Do you have any idea how many epic traps that could create? I think I just had a mental orgasm at the possibility of incinerating an invading army with a huge magnifying glass in a desert fort.

[Silverionmox]

It'd be cool to have the ability to burn dead bodies into coke/charcoal.
Then sieges would be even better for us, since we get power to melt all their usless equipment.

Humanoid bodies typically contain too much moisture to be a good fuel, depending on the level of body fat. Burning mummies is no problem though.

An alternative heating source appropriate to dwarves could be lenses and sunlight. Making a sufficiently large lens and grinding it is quite a feat of craftsmanship, and the metal mirror to focus sunlight into it ain't no children's game either. These could also boil corpses dry, but if you need fuel that desperately, you're probably in the desert anyway.

Do you have any idea how many epic traps that could create? I think I just had a mental orgasm at the possibility of incinerating an invading army with a huge magnifying glass in a desert fort.

Welcom to Corpsecrisp the Mirrors of Singing. Wipe your feet before entering (or else..).

[Winterbrass]

It'd be cool to have the ability to burn dead bodies into coke/charcoal.
Then sieges would be even better for us, since we get power to melt all their usless equipment.

Humanoid bodies typically contain too much moisture to be a good fuel, depending on the level of body fat. Burning mummies is no problem though.

An alternative heating source appropriate to dwarves could be lenses and sunlight. Making a sufficiently large lens and grinding it is quite a feat of craftsmanship, and the metal mirror to focus sunlight into it ain't no children's game either. These could also boil corpses dry, but if you need fuel that desperately, you're probably in the desert anyway.

Do you have any idea how many epic traps that could create? I think I just had a mental orgasm at the possibility of incinerating an invading army with a huge magnifying glass in a desert fort.

Welcom to Corpsecrisp the Mirrors of Singing. Wipe your feet before entering (or else..).

... Also, it would make glass production extremely simple - mineable glass? Hell yes.

[Simmura McCrea]

The ability to tell immigrants to hop in a water wheel on waterless maps to supply power would be fun.