Homemade Lump Anyone?

You can produce it yourself if you really want to, but much like firewood, it's a labor of love if you're not in the business of it.  If you already have all the equipment, and really enjoy it, go for it.  At your best yield, you'll need about 6-7# of seasoned wood to make 1# of charcoal.  Wood needs to season for 3-6 months, and in a small kiln probably needs 18-24 hrs to burn, and at least the same to cool.  Knowing when to stop the burn it the trick.

My comparison on the time vs. reward.....My house came with a fairly expensive wood stove insert for the fireplace.  A had a few large trees come down in a storm, so I spent a weekend or two, splitting the wood, and stacking it near my deck.  I already had a tractor, ATV, chainsaw, and had access to a splitter.  I ran that fireplace non-stop for a month, only shutting it down to clean it out.  My power bill was $80 lower that month.  I easily spent that on premix gas, saw chain sharpening, the stand I made for it, chimney cleaning, extra pest control, etc.  Power bill wasn't much lower because of what I still had to run the humidifier and the water heater (hot water is the byproduct of my geothermal running.)  Lot of work for little if any savings, so now I only keep firewood around for emergencies and mainly just burn charcoal during power outages.