I have not and do not plan a large VAWT in the near future.  Until then, I will let the expurts at Sandia labs and such spend out tax monies (as the public has little control of government spending) chasing what has been a folly to this time.

There is a LOT of published data from our free-spending goobernment.  One would be well advised to obtain, read and digest what has been written on the VAWT.  This goes for the HAWT also. However, 'cookie receipe' HAWTs have and are being sucessfully built.

My thought is if they can't do it with millions, I doubt I can do it out of my expendable after tax dollars. That isn't prejudice, that is several things, practicality and the truth are in the mix.

I think its quite fun/interesting.  I would never suggest that anybody who needs power build a VAWT, because I dont know of any workable homebrew systems yet (perhaps Ed is getting close!).  There are lots of problems in my mind with it all that have not been overcome yet.  While they can certainly be workable, so far history has shown them not to be cost effective.  In my mind it's kind of like the choice of burning your diesel in a diesel engine....  or - burning it under a boiler to fire a steam engine.  VAWT's have complicated problems with them I think and they're just not cost effective yet.  Of course they can work though.

I think it's one thing to get one spinning nicely in the wind and making some power with it.  It's another to keep it up on a tower top working in a reliable way and controlling it in high winds.  If it's not on a tower... it's not going to work very well.