In 2018, the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Fossil Energy and the National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) announced an initiative to fund competitive research and development (R&D) of next-generation coal facilities. This R&D program, called Coal FIRST (which stands for flexible, innovative, resilient, small, transformative), aims to advance first-of-their-kind coal generation technologies to provide secure, stable, and reliable power with near-zero emissions that can adapt to a changing electrical grid.

Barr teamed with Doosan Heavy Industries and Construction; Envergex, LLC; Microbeam Technologies, Inc.; the University of North Dakota – Institute of Energy Studies; and MLJ Consulting to respond to the DOE’s request for proposal for coal plant of the future concepts. We submitted two innovative coal-combustion concepts, complete with configurations, equipment features, performance characteristics, and cost implications for a future commercial coal plant.

The Barr team had evaluated multiple energy storage concepts including thermal storage from the feedwater system, hydrogen storage from gasification, and battery storage with lithium ion, vanadium flow, and a hybrid technology of lithium and vanadium. Barr worked with vendors to understand the technical and economical feasibility. This included concept design and material selection of storage components and evaluation of electrical and controls configuration. 

For more than 40 years, following a regional decline in iron-mining production and employment, a large, idled mine complex near Chisholm, Minnesota, lay inaccessible behind a chain-link fence despite its enormous recreation potential. After years of stakeholder, industry, and legislative engagement and education championed by the Minnesota Department of Iron Range Resources & Rehabilitation, the city of Chisholm, and Barr, Redhead Mountain Bike Park became a model for the flexible use of inactive mines for recreation without excluding the possibility of future mining. 

The city hired Barr to design more than 35 miles of world-class, single-track mountain-bike trails through this complex, rugged landscape. Our initial work encompassed pre-construction GIS mapping, conceptual design, stormwater permitting, surveys of threatened and endangered species, a cultural-resources literature review, and a Minnesota Environmental Assessment Worksheet.

Applying an innovative land-use strategy, we then designed trails to avoid stockpiles of iron ore and other potentially usable mine features. If mining activities were to resume, the trails could be relocated.

Implementing the design was a complex and iterative process. Numerous factors played into the final trail alignment, including the:

The trails also needed to provide an exhilarating ride for cyclists at all skill levels while reinforcing safety and sustainability. Following International Mountain Bicycling Association trail construction guidelines, Barr worked with the construction manager to field-fit the design and assisted with construction permitting. 

The first 25 trail miles were completed in 2022. To minimize disturbance, construction involved mainly small excavators, compactors, and powered wheelbarrows. Our team provided construction support, performed environmental-compliance inspections, and created as-built maps. We’re now under contract with the city to develop a 10-year master plan, an additional 10 to 20 miles of trails, and a more-permanent trailhead with a paved pump track (a circuit featuring ripples and banked turns that allow cyclists, skateboarders, and roller skaters to generate momentum by “pumping” their upper and lower bodies instead of pedaling or pushing off).

Not long after the trail opened, the Minnesota Cycling Association held a middle- and high-school championship race at Redhead that generated nearly $1 million in local revenue—more than half the park’s construction cost. In addition, Chisholm’s downtown area has welcomed new businesses that cater to cyclists, injecting millions more dollars into the local economy.

In 2024, Barr helped the city develop the Redhead Mountain Bike Park master plan to guide the park's expansion. The master plan successfully secured the park’s “regional designation” status in 2025 by the Greater Minnesota Parks and Trails Commission, which makes the park eligible for capital-project funding as it expands.

Barr helped make Redhead a success by employing our in-depth understanding of mining operations and designing for both the public and the mining industry. The park also demonstrates how flexible-public-use planning can contribute to overcoming social-license barriers to mining operations.

Barr worked closely with the Ramsey-Washington Metro Watershed District’s administrator, staff, and managers to prepare the district’s 2017–2026 watershed management plan. We helped the district develop and implement an intensive stakeholder engagement process to gather feedback from residents, cities, and regulatory agencies. Working closely with the administrator, Barr assisted the district with establishing goals and action items, as well as defining an implementation program to be carried out over the life of the plan.

Barr and district staff members collaboratively updated all sections of the plan, including the district’s strategic overview—an abbreviated, graphic-rich summary document intended to make the plan more accessible to a wider audience. The 2017–2026 watershed management plan was submitted for 60-day review in June 2016. After Barr helped the district respond to comments received on the draft plan, the plan was formally adopted in April 2017.

Concurrently, Barr and the district developed a comprehensive watershed restoration and protection strategy (WRAPS) report through a Minnesota Pollution Control Agency grant. The WRAPS evaluated restoration strategies for each impaired water body in the district (three lakes and two streams) and protection strategies for the district’s many unimpaired water bodies. This information was incorporated into the watershed management plan and used to create a total maximum daily load (TMDL) report that addresses all of the district’s impaired water bodies. All of this work culminated in a 2017–2026 watershed management plan, which documents prioritized implementation items for the district for the next 10 years.

The MWMO’s new headquarters involves a wide array of uses and public benefits—not only as a home to MWMO’s staff but as a unique setting that supports interpretation, education, and training on water quality and stormwater issues. It is also helping spur redevelopment along the east bank of the Mississippi River.

Barr provided a variety of services for the new headquarters related to site clearing, contamination investigation, remediation planning and implementation, assistance with obtaining grant funding, design of environmentally friendly and sustainable stormwater management features, and incorporation of recreational and educational design features in the project.

The site has a long history of industrial and commercial land uses and the presence of debris placed in a former ravine that crossed the site. The remediation was coordinated with the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency’s Brownfields program and was funded by state and county brownfield grants. After construction, a wide array of community groups have used the facility for meetings and events related to water, natural resources, recycling, and other environmental issues.

Analysis demonstrates scalability of innovative carbon-capture concept

A typical 550 MWe coal-fired power plant emits approximately five million tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) into the atmosphere every year. Growing concern over power-plant greenhouse gas emission rates and their impact on climate change has prompted the Department of Energy (DOE) to fund ongoing research related to developing more cost-effective carbon capture technologies.

Starting around 2010, the DOE funded 14 carbon-capture research projects through the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) program. The SBIR and STTR funding vehicles allow federal agencies to assign a portion of their research and development budgets as set asides for encouraging product development by small businesses.

Envergex LLC, a small business, and The Institute for Energy Studies (IES) at the University of North Dakota (UND) have been developing a dry-sorbent technology for capturing and removing up to 90% of carbon dioxide from existing fossil-fuel-fired power plant flue gases, using funding from the SBIR/STTR and other federally funded programs. Their novel, solid-sorbent technology (Capture of CO2 by Hybrid Sorbents – CACHYS™) is based on the following ideas:

From 2012 to 2015, Barr conducted technical and economic feasibility analyses of the innovative hybrid CACHYSTM technology for CO2 capture and separation from coal-combustion-derived flue gas for installation at a 550 MWe coal-fired power plant. (The 550 MWe is a standard size used by DOE-funded research projects for equivalent comparisons.)

Barr’s analysis to evaluate the techno-economic feasibility of the CO2 capture process was based on a combination of laboratory test results as well as ASPEN Plus process modeling studies conducted by Envergex LLC and UND. Barr reviewed the process and the engineering foundation used to create the process flow diagrams and the design basis. Next, we identified the major equipment required per the process flow diagram and formulated general arrangement drawings. Equipment sizing and cost estimates followed.

The preliminary work and Barr’s evaluation comprised the first of multiple phases for this technology development. The next phase involved updating the techno-economic study by Barr based on the test results from a pilot plant that applied the CACHYSTM process to a boiler slipstream at the university’s campus. We anticipate a small demonstration plant as the next developmental step for example, the treatment and CO2 capture of a fraction (5 to 10 percent) of a power plant flue gas stream. If successful, these phases would lead to the installation of a commercial-scale CACHYS system at a utility coal-fired power plant. The technology can also be installed for natural gas-fired combined cycle systems and is equally applicable to both small and large power plants.

Since 1975 Barr has provided environmental engineering services to the Ramsey-Washington Metro Watershed District (RWMWD) in the Twin Cities Metropolitan Area. Recent and upcoming changes in state wetland regulations are driving organizations who manage natural resources to look outside their respective districts for potential wetland replacement sites.

In 2019 the RWMWD asked Barr to conduct a wetland restoration site search to identify areas that could be established as wetland bank sites or targeted for site-specific wetland replacement. Identifying these sites ahead of time can help development project proponents meet state and watershed rules.

Our search is focused on finding opportunities with potential to achieve sustainable wetland communities. Using data from previous wetland assessments and other available desktop data, we are identifying high-priority areas within each sub-watershed where restoring degraded wetlands will help achieve watershed goals. Barr will prepare a summary of results prioritizing potential wetland restoration based on adjacent habitats or buffers and habitat connectivity, flood storage potential, habitat connectivity, potential to benefit water quality, proximity to other protected lands, groundwater sensitivity, projected land use, size and ease of restoration, and number of landowners.

Barr helped the City of New Brighton, Minnesota, with the New Brighton Exchange, one of the most ambitious and complex brownfields projects in the state. Situated at the interchange of highways I-694 and I-35W, this site comprises 100 acres of land with a century of heavy industrial use, and it included two Superfund sites, several petroleum-release sites, and two former dumps. 

Barr’s involvement in the redevelopment of the project encompassed due diligence for property acquisition, master planning, assessment of remediation feasibility and cost estimating, site investigation and remediation design, coordination of building demolition, wetland and stormwater permitting assistance, design of new public utilities, and assistance with both community relations and regulatory and stakeholder approval. To help fund this multimillion-dollar project, Barr assisted the city in obtaining more than $9.6 million in environmental cleanup funds from a variety of grant programs.

The cleanup of the New Brighton Exchange site has been completed, and most of the area is now redeveloped, including five corporate headquarters; a luxury apartment building; a 25-acre new residential development; nine new stormwater ponds; and new streets, boulevards, and parks. Barr continues to provide long-term soil-gas monitoring around the former dumps and helps the city respond to development inquiries for the remaining undeveloped parcels.

Saskatchewan’s Athabasca Basin is home to the world’s highest-known grade of uranium. When Rio Tinto was considering advanced exploration options for a uranium mine in the basin, it turned to Barr for a prefeasibility study of the surface infrastructure needed to support shaft pilot drilling and sinking, and headframe construction. With a focus on the planned exploration activities and mine-water quality and quantity, we prepared prefeasibility-level designs with sufficient detail for advanced exploration planning, provided prefeasibility-level cost estimating, and reviewed environmental assessment and permitting regulations and their applicability to the project.

Barr’s designs included site layout and grading, access roads, water storage and management, mine-water treatment, discharge pipeline for treated effluent, rock stockpiles for clean and special waste, and potable-water and sewage treatment.

Identifying risk is crucial in determining whether a project advances. We worked with the client to identify and review potential cost, schedule, and environmental risks associated with the project’s design and construction. Then, as part of a project-wide risk assessment, we entered those risks into a client-approved risk register and helped develop mitigation strategies. Additionally, we performed value engineering to identify ways to optimize cost and schedule.

Barr also performed a geochemical characterization of potential waste rock, which assessed the potential for acid generation (PAG) and constituents of potential concern (COPCs). This geochemistry study helped to identify lithologies that needed to be managed as waste and to determine the mine’s size and waste management requirements.

Renewable portfolio standards have required utilities to generate a portion of their electricity from renewable sources such as wind, the sun, or biomass (a fuel source comprising wood waste, municipal solid waste, grasses, and/or agricultural byproducts). Cofiring biomass and coal has been one way to harness a sustainable resource while continuing to provide energy at a low cost.

Wyandotte Municipal Services hired Barr to study cofiring coal with biomass at its power plant. We performed a test burn to uncover potential fatal flaws and determine how to best control the flow rate of biomass being fed to the boiler, which entailed temporarily using the plant’s limestone silo and feeders.

The project included three tests, a 25-ton material-handling test to determine whether the biomass would feed through the coal-handling system, and two eight-hour tests using 15 and 30 percent biomass, respectively. Barr evaluated the boiler capacity and thermal efficiency, as well as the approximate emission reductions gained from cofiring, and identified operational constraints. Although the utility ultimately decided to pursue other avenues for meeting the renewable portfolio standards, the test burn demonstrated that cofiring was a viable option for the facility.

The Wyandotte test burn was featured in an article titled “Biomass and Coal: A Powerful Combination,” in the August 2011 issue of Biomass Magazine.

A copy of the full test report is available from the state of Michigan’s website.

A confidential power client wanted to assess the viability of constructing a hydropower pumped-storage facility that would pump water from a lake to an upper reservoir during off-peak periods and release it to generate power during peak demand. Barr was hired to evaluate the complex geologic stratigraphy of the proposed reservoirs, document anticipated foundation conditions for the proposed powerhouse, and monitor the presence and level of groundwater at the proposed reservoir and powerhouse locations. We provided geotechnical engineering and geological engineering services and subcontracted, supervised, and managed the drilling, testing, and geophysics work.