Treasure hunt: for oil and gas entrepreneur Alex Cranberg, the path to sustainable energy leads to a hole in the ground.

• Author: Cote, Mike
• Position: COVER STORY

Framed photos taken with U.S. presidents, stacks of trade magazines, native artwork collected from international travel. The memorabilia that adorns the walls and shelves in a small conference room in Alex Cranberg s Denver headquarters for Aspect Energy is typical of a successful executive. Except for that box of Rice Kripies. And that chicken mask, Like any mementos someone chooses to personalize their workspace, there are stories attached to them. The touch of Snap! Crackle! Fop! - a prop from a TV commercial Cranberg appeared in when he was a teenager - and the chicken headgear - which we'll get to in a moment--offer glimpse into a life of a man whose interests, experience and outlook strip away whatever stereotype you might have of a jet-setting oil and gas entrepreneur.

It's easy to come to such cliched conclusions if you haven't met someone like Cranberg, who explores the Earth to search for the stuff that remains trapped inside it. In an age where renewable energy has become gospel in the battle to stop climate change--or at least reduce our dependency on foreign oil if you're not sold on the science--businessmen who advocate for fossil fuels have been castigated in the "new energy" age as backward thinkers, profiteers who stand in the way of a revolution.

So it's eye-opening to sit across from a soft spoken guy with a quirky sense of humor - he likes to collect photos of bad signs on his smart phone (such as the giant billboard that begs support for "pubic education") and attends bodybuilding expos where pumped-up men and women tout the latest fitness products that just must attract some investment money from him.

The lifelong energy explorer likens the search for oil and gas to a treasure hunt, is passionate about reforming education and enjoys playing the cello.

It's the chicken mask, however, that exemplifies Cranberg's primary passion. He dons that headgear for fun at conferences about "peak oil," the contention that our transition to alternative sources is inevitable because soon we simply won't have any oil left in the ground.

Cranberg doesn't see that happening any time soon.

"I've always protested the idea of peak oil," Cranberg said in April during an interview we videotaped for ColoradoBiz TV. "When the peak oil conferences show up I sometimes go with like-minded college students in chicken costumes and hand out a letter that details the various ways in which there is a tremendous abundance of petroleum resources."

It merely requires faith in technology and human ingenuity, he said.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

"Most people don't realize that not only is there a lot of oil left--most of which is still in the ground and awaits developing technologies to improve its recovery--but the peak oil people are only focusing on one very specific subset of the petroleum molecules, hydrocarbon molecules, and theirs are the easier to get, conveniently sized oil molecules."

The spectrum of hydrocarbons includes coal, tar...