[treekogreen]

Would a better design not to bore downwards instead of build upwards? This seems like such an over-engineered concept that could be simplified and compartmentalised drastically.

There's a whole host of negatives I see in this implementation, not to mention the downsides of erecting a crane-line structure and public opinion.

This is a UK company doing what I described above: https://gravitricity.com/ (i have no affiliation)

[IanCal]

Drilling is also complex and expensive. You'd have to go down, reinforce it and deal with pumping at the very least. On the other hand a crane is, well, a pretty small and simple (/well known) thing. It's a crane and a stack of bricks, it doesn't feel particularly over engineered to me.

Either may make sense given the surroundings but I don't think building up is an obvious problem

[treekogreen]

From a personnel safety standpoint (what a catastrophic failure looks like in each case), a unit installation cost standpoint (fabricate x amounts of bricks with x tolerance in the grooves plus a crane with y units of generation on top) and finally from a complexity standpoint of stacking stacking bricks (I assume is not just going to be a stored procedure and include some kind of error correction and monitoring).

I just cant see anything positive about this solution in the slightest. I wouldn't want to be anywhere near that structure. A crane truly is a simple and well known thing but I have tangible knowledge of a large community pushback in the UK where all that was installed was a relatively small turbine on the top of a hill.

Boring and reinforcement (concrete spraying) is a tried and true technology and most importantly its out of sight.