While methane gas from cattle is known to contribute to global warming, Toyota Motor North America plans to set up a power plant in California that will capture methane gas from dairy cattle waste to generate water, electricity and hydrogen.

Toyota, which is betting heavily on fuel cell technology announced this project at the Los Angeles Auto Show. The project named  The Tri-Gen Project will be executed at the Port of Long Beach, California and is slated to be the world's first commercial-scale 100 percent renewable power and hydrogen generation plant.

Experts at Toyota believe that by  2020, Tri-Gen will produce enough electricity to meet the daily driving needs of nearly 1,500 vehicles - about 2.35 megawatts of electricity and 1.2 tons of hydrogen per day.

The hydrogen fueling station will support the automaker's operations at the port. Matt McClory, senior engineer with Toyota research and development said that they are trying to green up the natural gas pipeline network that extract gas by drilling wells with renewable sources, like from gases emitted from landfills, wastewater treatment plants and farm animals.

McClory said that for this project, Toyota plans to source renewable methane from agricultural waste, primarily from dairy farm manure in California,.