Trying to cash in on Energy Conversion Devices has been like chasing the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. For more years than I care to remember — at least 15 — the solar power company searching for novel energy solutions has repeatedly been touted as an eventual $100 stock. The forecasts were based on the bulls’ perennial exuberant expectations that sustained and explosive profit growth was only a matter of time.

So far, though, it has been all hype at ECD, which, among other things, makes batteries that generate and store power for items ranging from consumer electronics to electric vehicles, and solar panels for telecom, lighting, and other uses.

Last year, the company lost money for the 13th time in the past 15 years, winding up $18.6 million in the red on sales of $102.4 million. As a result, its highly volatile stock has been on a year-in, year-out roller-coaster ride, running up on periodic sunny words from Wall Street and then falling in the face of one disappointment after another.

The company, which boasts more than 350 domestic and in excess of 600 foreign patents covering a wide range of potential solutions to our dependence on fossil fuels, has managed to stay afloat by attracting capital from a public willing to bet on its work, as well as from partners including the likes of Chevron and Toshiba. ECD also has a 39.5% interest in a joint venture involving the manufacture of super-fast memory chips in which Intel is a co-investor. It is also trying to develop hydrogen storage materials that can be used in conjunction with fuel cells.

Short sellers, those who bet on falling stock prices, claim ECD is a bet on hot air, a wager on a Shangri-La future that will never come to pass. They’re backing up this view with big bucks, what with the latest numbers showing a hefty and sharply rising short interest of 10 million shares, or 25.9% of the floating supply.

Still, there are some pretty impressive institutional believers, among them Fidelity Management, which owns nearly 4 million ECD shares, and Barclays Global Investors and BlackRock Investment Management, each of which holds almost 1.7 million shares.

In recent years, the shorts have wound up with a bloody nose, what with the stock ballooning to an alltime high last year of $57.84 from a 2004 close of $19.32. It’s currently trading at $35.55.

So, what next? The skipper of Leeb Capital Management, veteran investment adviser Steve Leeb, views ECD, which he describes as an “always tomorrow” company, as one “whose time has finally come.” While citing the “high risks,” as well as the “massive potential,” Mr. Leeb asserts: “Tomorrow is now at hand,” and he rates the stock as at least a double over the next 24 months, which would place it at about $30 shy of that $100 price tag.

His rationale: He expects the company, whose chairman is a former General Motors chief, Robert Stempel, to turn profitable within the next six to 12 months and then grow at a super-fast clip — by more than 50% a year thereafter. His projected numbers call for the company to ink more than $1 a share in its fiscal year ending June 2008, followed by $2 in fiscal 2009. By the end of the decade, he says he thinks profits could approach $3 a share, with ECD on track for continued outsize growth well into the next decade.

Arguing that the company will continue to function even if its profit plans are delayed, and given what he observes are the enormousness of the potential markets and its leading-edge technologies, Mr. Leeb contends the potential far outweighs the risks. As such, he rates the stock a solid buy.

Whether there’s any merit to his exuberance is anybody’s guess, but it’s worth keeping in mind that Wall Street skeptics abound. They include some sophisticated hedge fund managers who have dug deeply into ECD’s operations and concluded the company ‘s prospects are dubious.

One of them ridicules such enthusiasm, remarking: “Trying to make money by investing in Energy Conversion Devices is like to trying to beat Las Vegas by betting on the roulette wheel.”

dandordan@aol.com