Wolf Carbon Solutions withdrew its permit request for a pipeline that would have run from Cedar Rapids toward Illinois on Dec. 2.

The pipeline would have captured carbon dioxide emissions at the Archer Daniel Midland Company ethanol plants in Cedar Rapids and Clinton, liquefied those gases and transported the results to Illinois for sequestration underground. Carbon sequestration is the process of taking liquid carbon dioxide and trapping it under rocks several feet below the ground.

The pipeline’s path would have passed south of Mount Vernon and Lisbon, as well as cut through Linn, Cedar, Clinton and Scott counties in Iowa.

A series of public meetings were held regarding the project after a permit was applied for in February 2023, and community members spoke up against the proposed pipeline projects.

“After the accidents at ADM’s CO2 sequestration site in Decatur, Ill., and the subsequent enforcement order by the EPA, we knew that the handwriting was on the wall,” said Jessica Wiskus, a Linn County landowner, in a release responding to the cancellation. “This is not a safe technology, and the scale of the potential hazards posed by CO2 capture and sequestration make it only a matter of weeks after those accidents came to light that Wolf admitted, by their withdrawal, that the proposed CO2 pipeline project was not viable.”

Wolf, in its filing, said it may still seek a determination on a project in Iowa in the future once “more certainty exists concerning its plans to proceed.”

This marks the second pipeline stretching south of Mount Vernon and Lisbon to have rescinded an application, with a pipeline project by Navigator CO2 withdrawing a permit in early 2022. Wolf Carbon Solutions started discussions on a pipeline at the end of 2022 and applied for a permit in 2023.