John Rosenblum, Ph.D.

Rosenblum Environmental Engineering

900 Dorthel St., Sebastopol, CA 95472

(707) 824-8070

roseenveng@sbcglobal.net

Dr. John Rosenblum has been an industrial water and energy efficiency consultant for 15 years.  For the past 2 years he was also a partner in Provimetrics Corporation, an engineering consultancy focused on “mining” industrial control data to identify cost-effective energy efficiency improvements.  Before becoming an independent consultant, John was Senior Environmental Engineer at National Semiconductor Corporation's Santa Clara plant, where he was responsible for waste treatment and environmental compliance of metal-finishing and semiconductor-fabrication operations.

 John has been involved in many industrial water efficiency projects that have reduced wastewater volumes and loads by 30-90%, with operational savings that pay for the capital investment in 0.5-2.0 years.  He has helped develop innovative incentive programs for industrial and commercial water efficiency and wastewater reduction for several SF Bay Area cities.

 John has advised and assisted several San Francisco Bay area environmental and community organizations on sustainable water and wastewater solutions, and has participated in negotiations to resolve disputes over environmental impacts.

 John has a B.Sc. in Civil Engineering and a M.Sc. in Environmental Engineering from the Technion in Israel, where the focus of his education was design and operation of wastewater treatment systems.  His Ph.D. is from Stanford University’s department of Civil Engineering, where his research focused on solar cogeneration, energy efficiency, and waste minimization in the food-processing industry.

Publications

·        Heavy Metals Waste Minimization: Practice and Pitfalls Plating and Surface Finishing, April 1991, p.60.

·        Audit Results from the City of Palo Alto's Water Efficiency Program for Industry Energy Engineering, Vol. 90, No. 2, 1993, p.67.

·        Pollution Prevention in Practice: Organizing, Auditing, and Financing Strategic Planning for Energy and the Environment, Vol. 13, No.1, 1993, p.37.

·        Water Efficiency and Recycling in the Semiconductor Industry WateReuse Association Symposium XV, Napa, California, September 12-15, 2000.

·        Save Energy and Money by Mining Your SCADA Data, 74^th Annual California Water Environment Association Conference, Sacramento, California, April 2-5, 2002.

·        Greenhouse Gas Emissions of Water Use and Wastewater Generation by Municipal Facilities in Sonoma County. www.skymetrics.us, July 2003.

Dr. Rosenblum specializes in resolving industrial wastewater problems by identifying manufacturing process improvements that use less water, energy, and chemicals.  The resulting savings in operating costs can profitably offset the cost of environmental compliance.  Examples of his work include:

•  In semiconductor “fabs”, improvements in process rinsing coupled with wastewater recycling can reduce the enormous cost of producing ultra pure water, with payback periods of less than 2 years.  Further comparisons with local water and wastewater infrastructure investments (i.e. marginal costs) justify very effective and equitable incentives for industrial water efficiency and wastewater reduction.
• In precision plating, disc-drive manufacturing, and printed circuit board shops, improvements in process rinsing, recovery of metals from wastewater, and wastewater recycling can reduce the large combined cost of (a) deionizing process water and (b) treating wastewater laden with heavy metals, cyanide, and other toxics.  Payback periods range from 1-3 years, and unproductive investments to upgrade wastewater treatment systems are avoided.  Demonstration projects reveal that even with a doubling of production throughput, unit water use are reduced by 60-90%, and unit metal loads in wastewater are reduced by 40-90%.
• In food processing plants (e.g. juice, dairy, meat and poultry), reducing product loss and improving sanitation/clean-up efficiency can reduce wastewater volumes and organic loads by 50-90%.  Besides reducing large investments for upgrading overloaded wastewater treatment systems, these changes often calm down conflicts with surrounding communities.
•  In municipal wastewater treatment plants, improving aeration efficiency can reduce electrical energy use by 30-60%, and improve activated sludge performance.  Besides the large energy savings, reductions in peak power demand justify large capital incentives from government and utility programs, resulting in payback periods of 2-4 years.
• Optimizing the operation of water supply wells, pumps, and storage, so that fewer pumps are turned on between noon and 6pm on weekdays results in very large savings in demand charges for a relatively low investment.  Combining this optimization with accelerated conversion to more efficient pumps can produce even larger reductions in annual energy use, resulting in payback periods of 2-4 years.
• Installation and optimization of variable speed drives at pump stations for reclaimed wastewater, to match irrigation demands and minimize peak charges for electricity results in payback periods of 2-4 years.

Current projects include:

 Data mining to optimize operating procedures, energy efficiency, water efficiency, chemical recovery, and life cycle costs for cleaning and sanitation systems at a dairy processing plant.

Technical direction of Greenhouse Gas emissions evaluation for 10 municipal agencies, including water, wastewater, solid waste, transportation, and buildings.

Evaluation of energy savings from biological process optimization in municipal wastewater treatment plants.