Coal Dust is the ground form of coal in the Ala Industrial mod for Minecraft 26.2 (Java Edition). The Macerator produces it: one coal ore or deepslate coal ore grinds into two Coal Dust, while a finished coal or charcoal item grinds into one. Each grind costs 300 EU and takes 150 ticks (about 7.5 seconds). The Macerator is an LV machine (low voltage, up to 32 EU per tick) with an internal buffer of 800 EU, and ore from other tech mods works too because the recipe reads the shared c:ores/coal tag — the output is always Ala Industrial dust.

Coal Dust never smelts. It is a non-metal dust with no furnace or blasting recipe, so the only way back to fuel is the Compressor, which presses one Coal Dust into one coal for 260 EU — a strictly net-zero loop that spends nothing but energy. The supply stays renewable because charcoal from smelted logs grinds one-for-one into dust, the c:dusts/coal tag lets other tech mods consume it directly, and a tier-1 Ala Industrial villager trade buys 24 Coal Dust for one emerald. Behavior is identical on Fabric and NeoForge.