I Know I Keep Banging On About It,

but I really feel that hydrogen is the way forward, 

photograph Joseph Brent./Wikimedia Commons, to our energy needs, both for cars, homes and industry, and here is some great news, to produce hydrogen the insanely rare and expensive mineral iridium has to be used, but researchers from the RIKEN Centre for Sustainable Resource Science (CSRS) in Japan have found that instead of iridium, manganese could be used instead, with just a trace of iridium need for use as a catalyst, 

with the new catalyst, hydrogen production was possible continuously for over 3000 hours (about four months) at 82% efficiency without any degradation. “The unexpected interaction between manganese oxide and iridium was key to our success,” says co-author Ailong Li, going forward, the team has already begun working with industry partners who have improved the original iridium-manganese catalyst. They also intend to continue studying the chemical interaction between iridium and manganese oxide to reduce the required amount of iridium further, what great news for the energy industry, for the article which first was published in Nature, have a look here.