May 23, 2012. Governor Corbett has made it clear he’s going to push governments to convert to natural gas powered vehicles over the next few years. Speaking to Philadelphia’s WPHT-AM, Corbett pointed out declining natural gas prices have led to a slow-down in drilling at Pennsylvania sites. He said the state government can play a role in bring­ing the price back up, telling host Dom Giordano, “One of the areas where we’re look­ing now, is how do we help people increase the demand?”

   In addition to build­ing more pipelines to transport the gas, Corbett said he wants the state to “start converting the fleets of cars…to natural gas vehicles. …So that [drillers] have a market so they can go to Detroit to get Detroit to start building the vehicles.”

   Despite the higher upfront cost of a natural gas garbage truck — about $300.000 com­pared with $250.000 for a diesel garbage truck — the vehicles are less costly in the long run due to the lower fuel cost. With their constant stopping and going and heavy loads, garbage trucks burn a lot of fuel. At today’s prices, fueling a natural gas truck costs about half as much as fueling a diesel truck.