> they presumably need to be electrically conductive since the elevator carriage will need a lot of power to travel upwards a few thousand KMs before their pass

> they presumably need to be electrically conductive since the elevator carriage will need a lot of power to travel upwards a few thousand KMs before their passengers starve to death Even a slow space elevator that can only be used for transporting cargo would already be extremely useful. You could even load it with a container filled with life support if you really need to ship living cargo.