Coke is a grey and porous fuel with a high carbon content and few impurities, made by heating coal or oil in the absence of air — a destructive distillation process. It is an important industrial product, used in iron ore smelting, but as a fuel in stoves and forges when air pollution is a concern; the unqualified term "coke" refers to the product derived from low-ash and low-sulfur bituminous coal by a process called coking. A similar product called pet coke, is obtained from crude oil in oil refineries. Coke may be formed by geologic processes. Historical sources dating to the 4th century describe the production of coke in ancient China; the Chinese first used coke for heating and cooking no than the ninth century. By the first decades of the eleventh century, Chinese ironworkers in the Yellow River valley began to fuel their furnaces with coke, solving their fuel problem in that tree-sparse region. In 1589, a patent was granted to Thomas Proctor and William Peterson for making iron and steel and melting lead with "earth-coal, sea-coal and peat".

The patent contains a distinct allusion to the preparation of coal by "cooking". In 1590, a patent was granted to the Dean of York to "purify pit-coal and free it from its offensive smell". In 1620, a patent was granted to a company composed of William St. John and other knights, mentioning the use of coke in smelting ores and manufacturing metals. In 1627, a patent was granted to Sir John Hacket and Octavius de Strada for a method of rendering sea-coal and pit-coal as useful as charcoal for burning in houses, without offense by smell or smoke. In 1603, Hugh Plat suggested that coal might be charred in a manner analogous to the way charcoal is produced from wood; this process was not employed until 1642. It was considered an improvement in quality, brought about an "alteration which all England admired"—the coke process allowed for a lighter roast of the malt, leading to the creation of what by the end of the 17th century was called pale ale. In 1709, Abraham Darby I established a coke-fired blast furnace to produce cast iron.

Coke's superior crushing strength allowed blast furnaces to become larger. The ensuing availability of inexpensive iron was one of the factors leading to the Industrial Revolution. Before this time, iron-making used large quantities of charcoal, produced by burning wood; as the coppicing of forests became unable to meet the demand, the substitution of coke for charcoal became common in Great Britain, coke was manufactured by burning coal in heaps on the ground so that only the outer layer burned, leaving the interior of the pile in a carbonized state. In the late 18th century, brick beehive ovens were developed, which allowed more control over the burning process. In 1768, John Wilkinson built a more practical oven for converting coal into coke. Wilkinson improved the process by building the coal heaps around a low central chimney built of loose bricks and with openings for the combustion gases to enter, resulting in a higher yield of better coke. With greater skill in the firing and quenching of the heaps, yields were increased from about 33% to 65% by the middle of the 19th century.

The Scottish iron industry expanded in the second quarter of the 19th century, through the adoption of the hot-blast process in its coalfields. In 1802, a battery of beehives was set up near Sheffield, to coke the Silkstone seam for use in crucible steel melting. By 1870, there were 14,000 beehive ovens in operation on the West Durham coalfields, capable of producing 4,000,000 long tons of coke; as a measure of the extent of the expansion of coke making, it has been estimated that the requirements of the iron industry were about 1,000,000 long tons a year in the early 1850s, whereas by 1880 the figure had risen to 7,000,000 long tons, of which about 5,000,000 long tons were produced in Durham county, 1,000,000 long tons in the South Wales coalfield, 1,000,000 long tons in Yorkshire and Derbyshire. In the first years of steam railway locomotives, coke was the normal fuel; this resulted from an early piece of environmental legislation. This was not technically possible to achieve until the firebox arch came into use, but burning coke, with its low smoke emissions, was considered to meet the requirement.

This rule was dropped, cheaper coal became the normal fuel, as railways gained acceptance among the public. In the US, the first use of coke in an iron furnace occurred around 1817 at Isaac Meason's Plumsock puddling furnace and rolling mill in Fayette County, Pennsylvania. In the late 19th century, the coalfields of western Pennsylvania provided a rich source of raw material for coking. In 1885, the Rochester and Pittsburgh Coal and Iron Company constructed the world's longest string of coke ovens in Walston, with 475 ovens over a length of 2 km, their output reached 22,000 tons per month. The Minersville Coke Ovens in Huntingdon County, were listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1991. Between 1870 and 1905, the number of beehive ovens in the US skyrocketed from about 200 to 31,000, which produced nearly 18,000,000 tons of coke in the Pittsburgh area alone. One observer boasted that if loaded into a train, “the year's production would make up a train so long that the engine in front of it would go to S

The Disaster Monitoring Constellation for International Imaging or just Disaster Monitoring Constellation consists of a number of remote sensing satellites constructed by Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd and operated for the Algerian, Turkish and Chinese governments by DMC International Imaging. The DMC provides emergency Earth imaging for disaster relief under the International Charter for Space and Major Disasters, which the DMC formally joined in November 2005. Other DMC Earth imagery is used for a variety of civil applications by a variety of governments. Spare available imaging capacity is sold under contract; the DMC provides far larger areas of imagery than, but at comparable resolution to, established government imaging satellites such as Landsat. DMC imagery was deliberately designed to be comparable to Landsat imagery, in order to leverage the expertise and software of the large established remote sensing community used to working with Landsat images. Imagery can be provided far more from the DMC than from Landsat, thanks to having multiple similar satellites in orbit ready to cross over a point of interest, the larger images produced.

This brings the responsiveness, needed for emergencies and for disaster support, with images provided across the Internet from the responsive satellite and a member country's ground station within a day or less of a request being made. The DMC has monitored the effects and aftermath of the Indian Ocean Tsunami, Hurricane Katrina, many other floods and disasters; the sun-synchronous orbits of these satellites are coordinated so that the satellites follow each other around an orbital plane, ascending north over the Equator at 10:15 am local time. Some of these satellites include other imaging payloads and experimental payloads: onboard hardware-based image compression, a GPS reflectometry experiment and onboard Internet router; the DMC satellites are notable for communicating with their ground stations using the Internet Protocol for payload data transfer and command and control, so extending the Internet into space, allowing experiments with the Interplanetary Internet to be carried out. Many of the technologies used in the design of the DMC satellites, including Internet Protocol use, were tested in space beforehand on SSTL's earlier UoSAT-12 satellite.

AlSAT-1, launched November 2002, which completed its mission in August 2010. BILSAT-1, launched September 2003, which completed its mission in August 2006 due to failed battery cells. NigeriaSAT-1, launched September 2003, completed mission October 2012. UK-DMC, launched September 2003, completed mission November 2011. Beijing-1, launched October 2005. Completed its mission in 2013. UK-DMC 2, launched July 2009. Deimos-1, launched July 2009. NigeriaSAT-2 and NigeriaSAT-X launched 2011. Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd International Charter for Space and Major Disasters DMC International Imaging Description of the Disaster Monitoring Constellation from the Computerworld Honors Awards Description of the Disaster Monitoring Constellation from the Earth Observation Portal

Delano is a census-designated place in Schuylkill County, United States. The population was 377 at the 2000 census. Delano is located at 40°50′23″N 76°4′16″W. According to the United States Census Bureau, the CDP has a total area of 0.6 square miles, all of it land. As of the census of 2000, there were 377 people, 163 households, 118 families living in the CDP; the population density was 609.2 people per square mile. There were 172 housing units at an average density of 277.9/sq mi. The racial makeup of the CDP was 1.06 % Asian. There were 163 households out of which 25.2% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 54.0% were married couples living together, 12.3% had a female householder with no husband present, 27.0% were non-families. 24.5% of all households were made up of individuals and 12.3% had someone living alone, 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.31 and the average family size was 2.74. In the CDP, the population was spread out with 17.2% under the age of 18, 9.5% from 18 to 24, 26.0% from 25 to 44, 26.8% from 45 to 64, 20.4% who were 65 years of age or older.

The median age was 44 years. For every 100 females, there were 111.8 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 108.0 males. The median income for a household in the CDP was $32,344, the median income for a family was $39,583. Males had a median income of $27,031 versus $17,417 for females; the per capita income for the CDP was $15,460. About 5.0% of families and 3.3% of the population were below the poverty line, including none of those under age 18 and 15.7% of those age 65 or over. Delano Fire Company Delano Fire Company No. 1 Website