Introduction and context: global biomass resources - Biomass as Energy Source: Resources, Systems and Applications - page 16

Table 1.10. Growth rate of micro-algae measured as number of divisions per day at 25 ◦ C
and a light intensity of 5000 respectively 2500 Lux.

Units per cell in Pg/cell* 5000 2500 Dry weight

Chlorella ellipsoidea 0.88 0.85

Chlorella vulgaris (freshwater) 0.68 0.67

Dunaniella tertiolecta 0.60 0.64

Isochrysis aff. Galbana 0.78 0.81 8-30

Nannochlorois oculata 0.85 0.92

Skeletonema costatum 0.6 0.67 52

Tetraselmus suecica 0.46 0.44 66-292

*1 Pg = 1000 Tg = 1000 million tonnes.

Figure 1.5. Macro algae at Cape Good Hope, South Africa (photo E. Dahlquist).

1.5 REGIONAL OVERVIEWS

The following section some important regions will be addressed a bit more in detail. The overview
is not covering all countries and regions, but represents approximately half of the populations at
earth, and most type of climate zones.

1.5.1 EU27 - an overall energy balance
We have made some calculation of the agricultural and forestry production with respect to bioen-
ergy for EU27 (EU with 27 member countries). The conservative figures (Dahlquist et al ., 2010)
say around 8500TWh/y, which can be compared to the 16,000TWh/y primary energy used today