Dwain Kinsinger and Russ Gardner have been in this column space before with potential solutions. Their 3-year-old company, Green Energy Technologies, Inc. of Maryland, was thinking green before green became the new black.

Back then, they were working with the developers of a wind spire.

The spire was a tall column with an internal corkscrew structure outfitted with small propellers. The concept relied on wind to generate electricity.

The spires were environmentally friendly in their footprint and their impact on wildlife. They looked like a viable solution to our electricity needs.

That was then, but sometimes technology is not the only requirement for a solution.

In this case a combination of further research and a community's backlash against a more traditional wind farm caused Green Energy Technologies to rethink its original concept.

While the spires didn't kill birds and didn't require a 400-foot fall zone around each wind propeller and tower, they did require massing in wind farms. That meant rural locations including hills and ridges that could be cleared, and that's not where electricity was needed.

Working with developers, they reworked the concept. What was needed was a device that took advantage of the ambient wind close to where power was needed. The result is the WindCube.

The WindCube is a wind generator as opposed to a wind turbine.

With fewer moving propellers, the WindCube is quiet. Russ cites the example of a phone call he taped while standing next to an operating cube.

The structure includes a 10-foot base with a 30-foot tower made of recycled I-beams.

Within it is a propeller and generator. The WindCube currently is being tested in this configuration and meeting the output predicted by computer models.

Ultimately, the structure will include an aluminum shroud designed to funnel available wind to blades of the generator. The projected result amplifies available wind for a two-fold output. The whole installation, when screened, doesn't kill birds, bats, other curious wildlife or people.

The WindCube needs only a 25-square-foot print. Stacking the cubes two across and four high creates a 30-foot high wind wall with the energy output of the 400-foot "prop-on-pole" installation we know from wind farms. In operation, it generates that power with only 30 decibels of noise.

All these specifications mean that the WindCube is ideal for an urban installation. It requires the same structural support of the common, roof-based HVAC evacuator used to change the air in a typical building.

In fact, these machines are smart, too. Their aluminum and carbon fiber blades respond to computer feedback to a yaw gear that helps the blade chassis rotate 300 degrees. The WindCube can even operate upside down. The practical application of that capability is an under-bridge windfarm turning bay winds into usable, electric power.

According to Russ, the WindCube produces about 250,000 kilowatt hours per year compared with the 105 megawatts of the prop on pole. For practical purposes, that WindCube output would be sufficient to serve the average electricity needs of 10 2,700-square-foot homes.

The role of the WindCube in multi-source energy production is supplemental.

While a single cube cannot run a 30-story building, it can reduce the cost of electrical consumption. In fact, with net-metering, a business that closes at night while the WindCube continues to operate can actually run its electric meter backward, reducing its electric bill.

While this outcome may be sufficient to recommend the installation of a WindCube, the device has one more environmental advantage. Its construction and operation can be characterized as "green."

It's built with recycled steel and operates with bio-hydraulic fluid. When Green Energy Technologies deploys a WindCube, it will provide its services using biodiesel-fueled trucks.

So, we've got a quiet, environmentally friendly, relatively compact device that makes our electric meters run backward. The only question, then, is, how do we place an order?

And here is the drawback for homeowners. One of these babies will set you back a cool quarter of a million dollars.

While that may be beyond the reach of most of us, a forward-thinking developer could install one to operate a 10-home community.

With government incentives, tax credits and accelerated depreciation, the cost could be amortized over five years. A steady wind could blow that down to just under four years. Combined with a projected 20-year mean-time failure, a quarter of a million dollars could be a real deal.

Will we see these popping up on buildings? That's the intent of Dwain and Russ.

They still are running the numbers to verify projected outputs, but they also are responding to requests for proposals for wind source energy installations from the state.

Being green before green was trendy and looking to practical installations, Green Technologies may be part of a vision for a more energy-effective future - and a smaller electric bill for consumers.

E-mail your Crownsville stories to Elaine Nagey at elaine@nagey.com.