Fine. Let's do a quick calculation. You said creating a shaft would be as cheap as pumped storage. So I tried to find the costs involved and hit upon a price list for drilling wells. https://haynesandsonsllc.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Pric... According to that the price for a 420 foot deep hole with a 10 inch diameter is around $30,000 Assuming we put a lead weight inside that has half the volume of the entire shaft (3.25 cubic meters) and a mass of 37 tons we end up with a stored energy of 6.5 kWh. Since the lead costs $70,000 we are looking at a price of $15,400 per kWh. Pumped hydro is around $100 to $200. If you use something cheap like concrete or compressed earth you can store 5 times less energy so you'd end up with even worse numbers. And I think it goes without saying that a skyscraper is a lot more expensive than a hole in the ground.