The joys of springs: how Kenya could steam beyond fossil fuel

A faint smell of sulphur, a shrill hiss of gas and a Rift Valley panorama punctuated by 30 pillars of steam mark the frontline of renewable energy growth in Kenya.

 The geothermal potential of the Rift Valley is formidable. 

This is the boundary between Hell’s Gate national park and the geothermal plants that are increasingly powering one of east Africa’s fastest-growing economies.

Giraffes wander close to the giant pipes that snake across the landscape, a reminder this is also a border between an old model of development reliant on foreign safaris and a new drive to leapfrog the fossil-fuel phase of growth.

Read the story from The Guardian by Jonathon Watts - “The joys of springs: how Kenya could steam beyond fossil fuel.”