A hot fluid's heat capacity rate can be much greater than, equal to, or much less than the heat capacity rate of the same fluid when cold. In practice, it is most important in specifying heat-exchanger systems, wherein one fluid usually of dissimilar nature is used to cool another fluid such as the hot gases or steam cooled in a power plant by a heat sink from a water source—a case of dissimilar fluids, or for specifying the minimal cooling needs of heat transfer across boundaries, such as in air cooling.