What are the most viable options on lifters for a Space Elevator, in 20 years?

My main goal by this post is to encourage new and innovative ideas to go with the already existing concept of the space elevator.

I think this should be divided into two categories one for Crew and one for Cargo. O and two more for either throwing the object into Earth's orbit or for round trip missions to the moon and mars.

Would a Ram/Scram Jet Matched with other tech be an option?

Laser Tech to lift objects into space?

Would any form of Electro-magnatism such as on the levitating trains be useful?

Any ideas would be most appreciated even if they are none of the ones I mentioned but lets try to keep this about the space elevator in 20 years!

personally, i think maglev may be the answer...i read about three models in popular science that involve laser/light propulsion as means, but the initial versions have highly limited payload...but how do you maglev on a single molecule thickness carbon ribbon? hmm...

that's for the nano-engineers to worry about.

I also think maglev would be the best solution. BUT would the structure not have to support the weight of the object its lifting? because if the magnets were sent in a pulse upward, the object being pushed would have to be exerting the force, back onto that pulse, putting an equal amount of force on the "tower". does this sound right to everyone? or is there something I am missing? Perhaps the better answer would be to have a weight, attached to a pulley, that would sink in the water, pulling the object to be lifted upward, then to return the weight, have air pumped to bags attached to the weight.

now a quick question, if the load of the objext went through a pulley, and the pulley is in space, what would the forces be on that pulley? still the same as earth, or would the fact of having no gravity change things??

Don't worry about the forces any propulsion system will have on the ribbon, they will be negligable due to the sheer size and mass of the counterweight in geosynch orbit.

I had not considered Maglev before, perhaps a superconduting nanowire could be used for this purpose. It gets around quite a few problems.

Also the ribbon won't be a single molecule thick.