Another use if you have hydaulicraft installed, is the creation of compressed iron.
Wikipedia states that nitroglycerine is used in hydraulic fracturing for producing oil and gas from shale. Perhaps a hydraulic fracturing machine could be placed on oil shale, consume TNT and produce oil/gas while removing oilshale blocks, kind of like a water pump but for shale.
I would guess that ic2’s mining drill code could act a little like that.