Yah. Read Red Mars - apparently a space elevator could also be used as a whip delivery system, to fire cargo to desired locations. It would take a lot of fine control & computational effort. The novel posits that it would make sense to build an elevator on Mars first, then with that experience & materials science, build one (or more) on Earth, then on the Moon, & so on. Lots of interesting ideas there. Offhand, on solar energy, I'd say build rings of collectors & xmitters in synchronous Earth orbit, & beam the power down to the poles or to rectannae on mountains. The important thing is to get up there & start doing, the sooner the better.