On Thu, 26 Nov 2015 09:59:52 +0000, Roland Perry
wrote:

In message , at
01:42:31 on Thu, 26 Nov 2015, remarked:

While on the one hand this does benefit from efficiencies of scale (I'm
sure the municipal hot water plant is very good at its job,) I do wonder
about the 'transmission losses' involved. Although in a sense they do
provide a public good, in that I'm told knowing where the pipes run and
where to sleep near them is invaluable for the homeless in winter.

In some schemes of this kind (no idea about this specific case), the heat source for making the water hot is a by-product of some sort of
industrial process that would otherwise use it to make the atmosphere a little warmer or slightly increase the temperature of a local river.

There are district heating projects in the UK, eg:

http://www.vitalenergi.co.uk/casestu...ttingham-city/

You can see some of the pipes at the eastern end of the railway station,
and others were re-routed a little south of the station as part of the
tramway extension works.

IIRC this system utilizes the Great Central tunnels under Nottingham.
Great as the heating system is, I would much rather have the trains,
:-)