Jean Laherrere

Bio: Jean Laherrere is an academic researcher. The author has contributed to research in topics: Oil reserves & Population. The author has an hindex of 10, co-authored 25 publications receiving 2178 citations.

The End of Cheap Oil

Abstract: The End of Cheap Oil In 1973 and 1979 a pair of sudden price increases rudely awakened the industrial world to its dependence on cheap crude oil. Prices first tripled in response to an Arab embargo and then nearly doubled again when Iran dethroned its Shah, sending the major economies sputtering into recession. Many analysts warned that these crises proved that the world would soon run out of oil. Yet they were wrong. Their dire predictions were emotional and political reactions; even at the time, oil experts knew that they had no scientific basis. Just a few years earlier oil explorers had discovered enormous new oil provinces on the north slope of Alaska and below the North Sea off the coast of Europe. By 1973 the world had consumed, according to many experts’ best estimates, only about one eighth of its endowment of readily accessible crude oil (socalled conventional oil). The five Middle The End of Cheap Oil

Stretched exponential distributions in nature and economy: ``fat tails'' with characteristic scales

Abstract: To account quantitatively for many reported “natural” fat tail distributions in Nature and Economy, we propose the stretched exponential family as a complement to the often used power law distributions. It has many advantages, among which to be economical with only two adjustable parameters with clear physical interpretation. Furthermore, it derives from a simple and generic mechanism in terms of multiplicative processes. We show that stretched exponentials describe very well the distributions of radio and light emissions from galaxies, of US GOM OCS oilfield reserve sizes, of World, US and French agglomeration sizes, of country population sizes, of daily Forex US-Mark and Franc-Mark price variations, of Vostok (near the south pole) temperature variations over the last 400 000 years, of the Raup-Sepkoski's kill curve and of citations of the most cited physicists in the world. We also discuss its potential for the distribution of earthquake sizes and fault displacements. We suggest physical interpretations of the parameters and provide a short toolkit of the statistical properties of the stretched exponentials. We also provide a comparison with other distributions, such as the shifted linear fractal, the log-normal and the recently introduced parabolic fractal distributions.

Estimates of Oil Reserves

Abstract: Table of

Forecasting future production from past discovery

Abstract: There is a huge discrepancy between the "political" values of the reserves by country as reported by the Oil and Gas Journal, World Oil, BP Statistical Review, OPEC, etc and the "technical" values which are confidential to most countries Yet, most production forecasts by official agencies are based on the political data Some countries report minimum values (eg the USA with Proved values), others report maximum values (eg the FSU), and most countries report likely or median (called Proven + Probable) values which are generally close to, yet lower than, "mean", eg "expected", values When technical data are used to calculate the "mean" values of field reserves, a good fit is found between annual (and cumulative) discoveries and annual (and cumulative) production, the former being close to the latter with a time translation of a certain number of years This procedure makes it possible to forecast future production from the corresponding past discovery trend Examples shown for conventional oil are the US Lower 48, FSU, France, UK, Middle East, deepwater and the world outside "Middle East and deepwater", and for conventional gas, North America A long-term forecast for world production of all hydrocarbons, based on these methods, is far below all the scenarios developed for the 2000 Third Assessment report of the IPCC

Distributions de type fractal parabolique dans la Nature

Abstract: When objects in a well-defined natural domain are listed in decreasing size and plotted on a log-log format with size against rank, the result is not a straight line as would be expected from usual models, but a curve. Such curved plots, which we will call parabolic fractals occur in many natural distributions: for example, in galactic intensities; in town sizes (as defined by physical boundaries); and in hydrocarbon accumulation within a given petroleum system. The parameters of the parabola are characteristic of the multifractal structure of the studied objects. Certain remarkable similarities are observed between data from apparently very distinct phenomena. It is possible by extrapolation to forecast unobserved parts of the distributions; as for example the world's ultimate petroleum reserves or the total numbers of species.

An index to quantify an individual's scientific research output

Abstract: I propose the index h, defined as the number of papers with citation number ≥h, as a useful index to characterize the scientific output of a researcher.

Evolution of networks

Abstract: We review the recent rapid progress in the statistical physics of evolving networks. Interest has focused mainly on the structural properties of complex networks in communications, biology, social sciences and economics. A number of giant artificial networks of this kind have recently been created, which opens a wide field for the study of their topology, evolution, and the complex processes which occur in them. Such networks possess a rich set of scaling properties. A number of them are scale-free and show striking resilience against random breakdowns. In spite of the large sizes of these networks, the distances between most of their vertices are short - a feature known as the 'small-world' effect. We discuss how growing networks self-organize into scale-free structures, and investigate the role of the mechanism of preferential linking. We consider the topological and structural properties of evolving networks, and percolation and disease spread on these networks. We present a number of models demonstrat...

Meeting the Clean Energy Demand: Nanostructure Architectures for Solar Energy Conversion

Abstract: The increasing energy demand in the near future will force us to seek environmentally clean alternative energy resources. The emergence of nanomaterials as the new building blocks to construct light energy harvesting assemblies has opened up new ways to utilize renewable energy sources. This article discusses three major ways to utilize nanostructures for the design of solar energy conversion devices: (i) Mimicking photosynthesis with donor−acceptor molecular assemblies or clusters, (ii) semiconductor assisted photocatalysis to produce fuels such as hydrogen, and (iii) nanostructure semiconductor based solar cells. This account further highlights some of the recent developments in these areas and points out the factors that limit the efficiency optimization. Strategies to employ ordered assemblies of semiconductor and metal nanoparticles, inorganic-organic hybrid assemblies, and carbon nanostructures in the energy conversion schemes are also discussed. Directing the future research efforts toward utiliza...