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Ethiopia’s Corbetti Geothermal Project Advances Renewable Energy Development

By Robert Buluma Alphaxioms
Corbetti Geothermal Project: Ethiopia’s Ambitious Plan to Harness Clean Energy for Growth Ethiopia’s Corbetti Geothermal project has taken a significant step forward after signing a contract with the United Kingdom’s Marriott Drilling Group to drill up to four exploration wells near Shashemene in Oromia. The agreement marks the beginning of a new phase for one of Africa’s most closely watched geothermal developments and could help Ethiopia diversify its electricity supply beyond hydropower. The project is being advanced by Taranis Operations Ltd, which recently acquired a majority interest, alongside the Private Infrastructure Development Group (PIDG), which retains an approximately 40% minority stake. PIDG has also committed an additional USD 7.2 million through its project-development arm, InfraCo Africa Business Development Limited. The drilling programme is expected to begin early next year after a rig arrives at the Corbetti site and final preparations are completed. The initial e...
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Nevis Ignites Caribbean Energy Future with Landmark Geothermal Drilling Bids

By Robert Buluma Alphaxioms
🌋 Nevis Powers Forward: A Quantum Leap in Geothermal Energy Development By Robert Buluma | July 9, 2025 In a move hailed as a monumental step toward clean energy independence, Nevis has officially reached a historic milestone in its geothermal energy journey. With the recent opening of global tenders for the drilling of five major geothermal wells, the island is now closer than ever to realizing its ambition of sustainable, baseload geothermal power. Premier Hon. Mark Brantley, speaking during the July 3 sitting of the Nevis Island Assembly, described the development as a “quantum leap forward” — and rightly so. For a project that has been years in the making, the recent submission of bids by some of the world’s largest and most respected drilling companies signals a bold new chapter in Caribbean energy innovation. 🌍 Five Global Giants Enter the Ring Bids have been officially submitted by five world-renowned companies: Iceland Drilling Company (Iceland) Marriott Drilling (UK...
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Kamchatka’s Geothermal Surge: RusHydro and Zarubezhneft Join Forces to Power Russia’s Green Future

By Robert Buluma Alphaxioms
Russia is making a bold move toward renewable energy independence with a groundbreaking partnership between RusHydro and Zarubezhneft, two of the country’s energy giants.  By:  Robert Buluma This strategic alliance has resulted in RusHydro acquiring a controlling 51% stake in Geotermalnaya Energetika , a subsidiary of Zarubezhneft that oversees renewable energy projects. The crown jewel of this venture? The construction of Mutnovskaya GeoPP-2 , a 66.5 MW geothermal power plant set in the geologically rich region of Kamchatka. This milestone isn’t just another investment—it’s a calculated response to Kamchatka’s growing energy needs. With electricity demand in the region’s Central Energy District (CER) projected to soar to 1.85 billion kWh and 315 MW by 2030, authorities anticipate a looming power shortfall of up to 31 MW. To bridge this gap, RusHydro and Zarubezhneft plan to deploy a binary-cycle geothermal system at Mutnovskaya GeoPP-2, which promises over 90% capacity utili...
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Kenya Taps Deep Earth Power: 22MW Steam Breakthrough at Silali Sparks Geothermal Surge

By Robert Buluma Alphaxioms
🔋 Kenya Powers Forward: 1,065MW Green Boost from Silali Geothermal Field By:  Robert Buluma Kenya’s journey toward a clean energy future just got a massive boost  and it’s coming straight from the earth’s core. In a stunning breakthrough, the Geothermal Development Company (GDC) has unlocked a high-capacity steam well at the Silali geothermal field in Baringo , delivering a rare yield of 22 megawatts (MW) — equivalent to four conventional wells combined. This discovery is a beacon of progress, pointing to a promising energy-rich future for Kenya. The Silali field is part of the Baringo-Silali-Paka geothermal block , a volcanic-rich zone that has been under active drilling for the last seven years. Alongside the Paka and Korosi fields, this region has proven to be a powerhouse of underground steam reserves. GDC is now targeting 300MW from this cluster, distributing 100MW from each of the three geothermal fields. Already, 75MW of steam has been harnessed, and the company p...
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"Steam, Scandals, and Stalled Megawatts: KenGen’s Court Battle Over Olkaria VII Consultancy"

By Robert Buluma Alphaxioms
Power, Politics, and Procurement: Inside KenGen’s Legal Battle Over Olkaria VII Geothermal Consultancy By  Robert Buluma In a dramatic twist that’s shaken Kenya’s energy sector, the Kenya Electricity Generating Company (KenGen) is locked in a legal showdown over the consultancy tender for its highly anticipated Olkaria VII geothermal power plant. The project, aimed at injecting 80 megawatts of clean energy into the national grid, now faces turbulence—not from the underground steam chambers of Hell’s Gate, but from boardrooms and courtrooms. 🔍 What’s the Fuss About? At the heart of this high-stakes battle is a €18.16 million consultancy tender awarded to Italy’s ELC Electroconsult SPA . The catch? Their bid was over Sh200 million higher than that of the next technically qualified firm. The Public Procurement Administrative Review Board (PPARB), Kenya’s watchdog for public tenders, wasn’t impressed. In a June 2025 ruling, PPARB annulled the award, citing procedural irregularities, ...
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Teverra Powers Up Rico: A $200K Boost to Colorado’s Geothermal Future

By Robert Buluma Alphaxioms
By Robert Buluma | Alphaxioms Blog | July 8, 2025 From Fossil Fuels to the Earth’s Furnace—Rico is Rising Nestled in the mountainous beauty of southwest Colorado, the historic town of Rico is about to become a shining example of how geothermal innovation can power a resilient, carbon-free future. Thanks to a $200,000 grant from the Colorado Energy Office, awarded under the state’s groundbreaking Geothermal Energy Grant Program, Teverra is setting the stage for a transformative shift in how rural communities heat their homes. 🔥 A Groundbreaking Project with Groundbreaking Heat Teverra, headquartered in Atlanta, is no stranger to subsurface energy innovation. But the Rico Heat Network Project might just be one of its most impactful endeavors yet. The company plans to deploy cutting-edge subsurface analysis, thermal modeling, and engineering expertise to develop a direct-use geothermal system that will sustainably heat and cool buildings across the town. This isn’t just a pilot—it’s a pr...
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Eavor Demobilizes Rigs in Geretsried: What It Means for Closed-Loop Geothermal Investors, Heat Markets, and Project Risk

By Robert Buluma Alphaxioms
Eavor Demobilizes Rigs from Geretsried: What It Really Means for Closed-Loop Geothermal For three years, two drilling rigs on a farm estate near Geretsried, a Bavarian town about 40 km south of Munich, stood as the symbol of the world's most ambitious closed-loop geothermal experiment. Now in October 2026,  Eavor Technologies, the Calgary-based developer of the Eavor-Loop, has told the town and its heating utility that both rigs would leave the site . The company said keeping idle rigs and specialist services on site was costly, and that releasing them would help put the project in the strongest position to continue with Loop 2 once its commercial structure is reworked . On the surface, this is a logistics decision. Underneath, it is one of the clearest signals yet about where first-of-a-kind geothermal technology stands, and how hard it is to turn a technical proof into a bankable business. This article explains exactly what happened, what the move means and what it does not mean...
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Endurance Energy Tests World's First Subsea Geothermal Well at Axial Seamount

By Robert Buluma Alphaxioms
Endurance Energy Tests the World's First Subsea Geothermal Well: What the Axial Seamount Demonstration Really Proved What if geothermal energy did not need a power plant on land? What if electricity could be produced directly from the Earth's heat beneath the ocean, with generators sitting on the seafloor and sending power to coastal grids? On October 19, 2026, Seattle-based startup Endurance Energy announced a major step toward that idea. The company said it had drilled and completed the world's first subsea geothermal well and placed a 3-ton test power plant nearly a mile beneath the Pacific. It also reported net-positive electricity from heat at an active underwater volcano, according to its announcement on PR Newswire. The headline numbers are modest. The Adélie prototype produced more electricity than it used for about 8.7 seconds. During that time it delivered a median net output of about 2 kilowatts and a peak of 16.5 kilowatts. One detail matters more than any other...
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Djibouti Pays KenGen: $1M Offer on a Five-Year Geothermal Drilling Debt

By Robert Buluma Alphaxioms
Djibouti Pays KenGen: A $1 Million Offer on a Five-Year-Old Geothermal Drilling Debt Djibouti has finally moved to pay part of what it owes Kenya Electricity Generating Company (KenGen) for drilling work done near Lake Assal. The amount is small next to KenGen's balance sheet. What it says about selling geothermal drilling services across Africa matters a lot more. KenGen's latest annual report says Djibouti's state geothermal agency, the Office Djiboutien de Développement de l'Énergie Géothermique (ODDEG), has offered a first instalment of about $1 million (Sh129 million) against outstanding invoices of $2.13 million (Sh276.03 million), according to Business Daily. "ODDEG has acknowledged the debt and has proposed an initial payment of $1 million as the first instalment towards settlement," KenGen said in the report. KenGen is Kenya's largest power producer, with about 54% of the market. The Kenyan government owns 70% of the company and the public holds t...
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BLM Nevada Geothermal Lease Auction Boosts Renewable Energy Investment amid Solar Land Conflict

By Robert Buluma Alphaxioms
BLM’s Nevada Geothermal Lease Auction Signals Rising Competition for Federal Energy Land The Bureau of Land Management’s latest geothermal lease sale in Nevada attracted nearly $4.83 million in total receipts, highlighting growing investor interest in geothermal resources as electricity demand rises . The auction also exposed an increasingly important land-use conflict: several geothermal parcels overlap with proposed utility-scale solar projects, including NextEra Energy’s 1,000-megawatt Sawtooth Energy Center. The October 20, 2026, sale offered 83 parcels covering approximately 265,155 acres across 10 Nevada counties. Bidders placed offers on 60 parcels covering 186,641 acres, while 23 parcels received no bids. The results provide a new measure of competition for federal geothermal acreage in one of the United States’ most important geothermal states. Auction Results The Nevada auction attracted 32 registered bidders, of which 18 submitted at least one bid. Across the sale, bidders s...
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Menengai Geothermal Project Delays Expose Kenya’s Broken Steam Supply Model

By Robert Buluma Alphaxioms
Menengai’s Broken Promise: How Kenya’s Geothermal Model Lost the Steam Thematic image of the Olkaria Geothermal Field  Kenya’s Menengai geothermal project was sold as a model of modern public-private partnership. The state would carry the difficult and expensive burden of geothermal exploration and drilling. Private power producers would then build, own and operate power plants. Geothermal Development Company would supply the steam; the independent power producers would convert it into electricity; Kenya Power would buy the output. On paper, the arrangement was elegant. In practice, Menengai has exposed a far more uncomfortable reality: Kenya’s public steam-supply model is not delivering the certainty it promised. Menengai Phase I was designed to produce 105 megawatts from three 35 MW plants. GDC’s own project page says the three plants were awarded to Globeleq Menengai Geothermal, Sosian Menengai Geothermal Power and OrPower Twenty Two under a build-own-operate structure. Yet the ...
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Geiselbullach Geothermal Project Confirms 10 MW District Heating Capacity

By Robert Buluma Alphaxioms
Geothermal milestone at Geiselbullach: 10 MW of heat confirmed after successful second deep well test On 15 August 2026 the Geiselbullach geothermal project reached a pivotal technical milestone: performance testing of the second deep production well completed successfully, delivering a sustained flow of 90 liters per second of thermal water at 79–80 °C. These measured parameters translate into roughly 10 MW of usable thermal power for district heating, enough to replace a portion of heat currently supplied by the municipal waste-to-energy plant (AHKW) and to create headroom for expanding the regional district heating network. The result confirms the project’s technical assumptions and moves the scheme into system-integration and commissioning activities ahead of planned commercial deliveries for the 2027 heating season. This article explains the test results and their significance, outlines the technical and operational consequences, and places the Geiselbullach development in the bro...
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KenGen Risks Losing Olkaria Geothermal Wells Over Licence Error

By Robert Buluma Alphaxioms
KenGen Risks Losing Olkaria Wells Over 18-Year Licence Blunder Kenya Electricity Generating Company (KenGen) faces a serious legal and operational risk at Olkaria after an error in the coordinates of its geothermal licence left part of the company’s wells, steam infrastructure and other assets outside its legally recognised area. The licensing mistake, made nearly two decades ago, remains unresolved despite the Ministry of Energy and Petroleum acknowledging the problem in 2017.  The dispute has raised questions about the security of KenGen’s investments, the government’s management of geothermal resources and the potential consequences for Kenya’s electricity supply. Olkaria is the country’s most important geothermal centre and accounts for the overwhelming majority of Kenya’s installed geothermal generation capacity.  Licence Error Exposes Strategic Assets The problem dates back to September 19, 2008, when the Ministry of Energy and Petroleum issued KenGen a licence covering ...
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Lithium Harvest Plans Alberta Geothermal Power and Lithium Project

By Robert Buluma Alphaxioms
Lithium Harvest’s Alberta Geothermal Project Could Combine Renewable Power and Domestic Lithium Production Lithium Harvest Holding A/S has signed a letter of intent with an unnamed geothermal development partner to establish a joint venture for an integrated geothermal power and lithium production facility in Alberta, Canada. At full nameplate capacity, the proposed project is expected to produce approximately 28,500 tonnes of lithium carbonate annually while generating 0.67 TWh of renewable electricity each year. The development would use a single geothermal resource to supply both baseload power and lithium-bearing brine for direct lithium extraction and refining.  A Dual-Output Geothermal Development The proposed Alberta facility reflects a growing effort to extract more value from geothermal resources than electricity generation alone. Traditional geothermal power projects produce electricity by bringing hot underground fluids to the surface. Depending on resource temperature a...
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Corva and Oliasoft Connect Well Design With Real-Time Drilling

By Robert Buluma Alphaxioms
Corva and Oliasoft Build a Continuous Learning Loop for Smarter Well Construction Introduction Corva AI and Oliasoft have announced a strategic collaboration designed to connect well engineering, real-time drilling operations and post-well analysis through a bidirectional digital workflow. The integration links Oliasoft WellDesign with Corva’s Real-Time AI platform, creating a continuous information loop in which engineering plans guide field execution and drilling results improve future well designs.  The partnership addresses one of the persistent weaknesses in modern well construction: the separation between planning software and operational systems. Although operators generate large volumes of engineering and drilling data, those datasets often remain fragmented across departments, applications and reporting processes. The result is slower decision-making, repeated manual work and limited transfer of lessons from one well to the next. By connecting design assumptions with liv...
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California Court Orders New Environmental Review for Imperial County Geothermal Lithium Project

By Robert Buluma Alphaxioms
California Appeals Court Orders New Environmental Review for Imperial County Geothermal–Lithium Project Image: California Salton Lake Sea Hell’s Kitchen geothermal and lithium extraction plan sent back for deeper water, air-quality and mitigation analysis under CEQA A California appeals court has ordered Imperial County to conduct a more rigorous environmental review of the proposed Hell’s Kitchen geothermal power plant and lithium extraction project near the Salton Sea. The Fourth District Court of Appeal found that the county’s original environmental impact report (EIR) did not adequately address long-term water availability, enforceable mitigation measures for water shortages, or potential air-quality impacts tied to the receding Salton Sea. The ruling partially reverses a lower court decision and remands the case to Imperial County Superior Court, requiring the county and project developer Controlled Thermal Resources to address the identified deficiencies before the project can m...
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