http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/technology/space_elevator_020327-1.html

These numbers seem to be coming down rapidly!

Two shuttle flights-worth of hardware, cable, and booster to start it? "

That's because the plan is to use cable to lift cable

"The balance of the building to be done from earth?"

That's what I thought was interesting- I propose something which sounds like this a couple years. It was a offshoot of my pipelauncher concept- use same basic design (a pipe made from pipes (only for a elevator you would use concrete instead of steel pipe- cause it's cheaper, lighter, and for this purpose stronger).
I thought this was curious:
"That platform would be similar to the structure used for the Sea Launch expendable rocket program."
What does this mean?? Are they talking about Boeing's Sea Launch? It's basically a floating oil rig- and not that big. If they compared it to Troll that would make sense. Or is this "Sea Launch expendable rocket program" something else?

"Lots of technical hurdles to work out, but this sounds a lot closer than I thought."

Well, I'm not too impressed. Couple hundred dollar per lb with a volume of launches at about 1000 tons per year, could be done with conventional chemical rockets. I guess if it's a couple hundred per lb to GEO, that's slightly better. But I could do much better at about 1/1000th the cost with a pipelauncher. Better in the sense of lower start-up cost, lower technical risk, and with the same amount of time it would take to get this elevator thing running, the market associated with pipelaucher launch could bring the cost of launchs down to number close to $200 per lb to GEO (using chemical rockets)- assuming a yearly worldwide launch demand of say, more than 3000 tons (or one pipelauncher getting 1000 tons per year of business).
Of course, once we get some serious space development happening then I would concede that this elevator type concept might be a winning solution- if the volume is such that cost can be brought down to dollars per lb.