Infinite Power Solutions (Popular Video)

A revolution in electrical power storage may soon make changing batteries a thing of the past. Most batteries in use today are based on decades old technology which uses chemicals to store electricity for short term use. When batteries run out, most are tossed. Those that are rechargeable have to juiced over and over and over again.

Companies like Infinite Power Solutions in Littleton, Colorado have succeeded in developing what are known as thin film batteries, as small, and as thin, as a postage stamp. Most batteries (the one in your cellphone for instance) leak energy even when not in use. Thin film batteries, based on solid state technology, retain almost 100% of their charge. “Charge it once, it won’t leak, it will be there 20 years from now.” IPS VP Tim Bradow says thin film technology is already advanced enough to power the kind of wireless sensors used in everything from remote controls, smoke detectors, motion detectors, safety sensors on bridges, oil rigs, pipelines and airframes. Bradow says more powerful thin film batteries are just a few years away. “To serve applications like MP3 players and possibly cell phones and maybe within a number of years, maybe even laptops.”


Several companies are researching and developing this new generation of batteries, but IPS has gone even further. They’ve developed technology which can absorb leftover ambient energy emitted by everything from natural and synthetic light, radio waves from things like cellphones, mechanical vibrations from automobiles, even the heat produced by your own body. While this ambient energy comes in extremely small amounts, if continually captured and stored in batteries that do not leak, an essentially untapped energy resource can be harnessed.