Minecraft wiki entry for Tips_and_tricks, associated text: If you have shelter, wood, and cobblestone, but cannot find any coal to fuel or light the environment, just make a furnace, and smelt some logs (not planks). Use the planks for fuel—2 planks for every three logs the player wants to smelt. This will smelt into charcoal, which is almost identical to coal, except that it cannot be packed into coal blocks (or sold to villagers). Trees are pretty easy to grow, and especially once you can grow spruce or jungle "giant" trees, or even dark oaks, wood will be plentiful enough to make a lot of charcoal. That said, coal itself is pretty common too, and can even be found wherever stone shows at the surface.!