On many levels there are strong efforts being made to find alternative ways of distributing energy in the future. Hydrogen is considered to be one of the more potential energy carriers. Since there is still a long way to go before we can produce hydrogen in sufficient amounts - and at competitive prices - directly from renewable energy sources, we will still have to rely on fossil fuels for many years to come. The fact that hydrogen, if combined with carbon dioxide sequestration, can be made from fossil fuel without contributing to the green house effect may be a route of soft transition. Today hydrogen is essentially produced by the so-called steam reforming process of natural gas. In a number of studies we have investigated the fundamental aspects of methane and CO conversion on Ni and Ru surfaces - especially with respect to the effect of structure. From studies of Nitrogen dissociation on Ru we have learned that the so-called B5 sites are simply dominating the reactivity. It is therefore also of interest to investigate how these types of defect sites may influence other reactions - for example those related to the hydrogen production, such as the steam reforming process and its reverse reaction: the methanization reaction. Non-conventional production and conversion of hydrogen are also interesting, particularly because the extensive use of fuel cells will require developing new electrode materials that can replace the expensive and scarce Platinum. We will discuss different routes for development of new electrode materials, involving both screening of alloy materials under well defined conditions combining high pressure cells with conventional UHV equipment, but also biomimetric approaches. The latter involves materials inspired by the active co-factors of nitrogenase and hydrogenase enzymes for electrochemical hydrogen production.@footnote 1@@FootnoteText@ @footnote 1@B. Hinnemann, P. G. Moses, J. Bonde, I. Chorkendorff & J. K. Nørskov, Accepted JACS (2005).