If you knew about an investment that, by conservative estimates,...

If you knew about an investment that, by conservative estimates, would increase in value 47% in the next 18 months, would you buy it?

Well, today I want to tell you about such an investment — uranium. Heck, just a few months ago, I said uranium would hit $100 per pound by the end of this year. It looks ready to hit that target this month!

In just the past year, the white-hot metal has surged 137% to $95 per pound. That's far beyond the expectations of most market analysts. So now they're rolling out new estimates — higher and higher.

Resource Capital Research expects uranium to hit $125 per pound this year, and $140 per pound by September 2008. That's a 47% increase over the current price …

ABN AMRO Equities believes the fundamentals point to uranium staying at $140 per pound until 2010 …

I'm hearing other analysts say they're comfortable with $400 …

And over the weekend, I heard an industry insider propose $1,000-a-pound uranium!

"That's crazy talk," I said.

"No," the industry insider said. "It would only raise the price of power from a nuclear plant to a level five times as high as it is currently. In a peak oil scenario – where gasoline is trading at $15 per gallon – that's quite doable."

He has a point. If the cost of fuel for our cars can quintuple, then so can the cost of electricity for our houses. And the idea of quintupling energy prices is not that far-fetched.

http://www.moneyandmarkets.com