Grow your own trees! Automate wood production or grow your own forests.
Mods introducing new content into the game.
Furnaces, assembling machines, production chains.
Give them like a 1MJ fuel value. I agree with your assessment on the info screen, smelting them seems silly :) However burning them with a kindling value seems more reasonable.
Very good suggestion! Made the change with the 0.15 patch.
