BP and Rio Tinto formed a joint venture, Hydrogen Energy, to develop technology for producing power from coal, oil and natural gas without emitting the gases blamed for global warming, Bloomberg reports.

Rio will pay $32 million to BP to form the equally owned venture, which includes two planned BP hydrogen-fuel projects in Scotland and California that will cost at least $1 billion each.

BP has spent two years developing an industrial-scale, 475- megawatt power plant in Peterhead, Scotland, that emits less greenhouse gas. Using natural gas as a feedstock, the plant will separate hydrogen, which will be used to make clean power, from carbon dioxide, which will be piped to the North Sea and buried in an oil field 2.5 miles below the seabed.

A second experimental plant at BP’s Carson refinery in California will make hydrogen from coke.