Olkaria, KenyaAs he stares down from the ridge toward the steaming panorama below, Victor Otieno has a bird’s eye view of Kenya’s natural beauty—and of its planned industrial future.

Here in the East African Rift Valley, the 2,000 mile-long volcanic trench that’s slowly ripping the continent apart, acacia-speckled hills roll gently toward the horizon, eventually giving way to towering escarpments, caustic soda lakes and one of Africa’s biggest concentrations of wildlife. Less than a mile away lies the boundary of Hell's Gate National Park, a protected area that is home to herds of buffalo, zebras, giraffes, and more than 100 species of birds—as well as to an ancient gorge that’s said to resemble the gates to the underworld.

Otieno, a geologist with