Santo Domingo.- When the Santo Domingo Metro’s second line starts operating, Dominican Republic will be the first country to have a mass transit project with the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), since it will run on biogas, affirmed Climatic Change Council vice president Omar Ramirez yesterday.

He said a degassing project in the landfill at Duquesa will supply that fuel, which in turn will provide 10 mega watts of energy, enough to move the train, whose stations span from Luperón avenue in the west to the bridge “La 17” in the east.

The official said the country could also receive funds by lowering carbon emissions from fossil fuels, as the Kyoto Protocol stipulates.

Ramirez said only Colombia has a CDM project in mass transit thus far, with Bogota’s bus service. “We would be the second with mass transit and the world’s first with a metro.”

He added that the country already receives four million euros through the Kyoto Protocol from the gas extraction project at Duquesa, where recycled plastics are also being exported.