Creating a future powered by sustainable energy is one of society’s biggest challenges—a challenge intensified by the increasingly evident threat of climate change.

While global energy demand keeps rising—global energy demand will rise 47 percent by 2050, according to the US Energy Information Administration—much of our energy still comes from finite resources. Many of the processes that power our lives remain energy intensive.

Such complex problems inspire Northwestern Engineering faculty and students, who are approaching energy sustainability across the entire lifecycle: how we source the energy we need, how we store it, how we distribute it through the power grid, and how we use energy to produce goods and power our daily lives.