Just as it seemed that we were making real climate progress, the fossil fuel industry is sidetracking elected officials, regulators and business leaders with a rash of climate solution diversions: renewable diesel, hydrogen, renewable natural gas, biofuels, carbon capture and storage and carbon offsets. Chasing Chimeras: The Lure of Deceptive Climate Solutions tells stories of people living in the crosshairs of these proposals, working to expose the dangers that these projects pose to their lives, homes, communities and the planet. The documentary shows how city, state and federal governments and regulatory agencies are swayed by the fossil fuel industry’s self-promotion as purveyors of clean, low-carbon energy, and scrutinizes how state and federal programs promote and fund renewable diesel, biogas and hydrogen development, while disincentivizing the adoption of proven climate solutions. In contrast to fossil fuel industry solutions, the documentary examines the need to implement verified and trusted renewable energy sources (wind, solar and geothermal), energy conservation and nature-based carbon capture and storage solutions that take advantage of natural carbon sinks such as old growth forests and wetlands.
Chasing Chimeras focuses on environmental justice and climate impacts these so-called green energy projects are having on the communities neighboring these ventures. We start in Portland, Oregon, where the community nearly shut down Houston-based Zenith Energy’s massive oil-by-rail operation along the Willamette River. But when Zenith promised to switch to shipping so-called renewable diesel in five years, the city granted a permit that it had previously denied. Moving on to San Francisco Bay’s Refinery Corridor, we see two massive oil refineries converting to renewable diesel. Back in Oregon, we tell the story of another Houston-based company, NXT Clean Fuels’ plan to industrialize prime farmland along the Columbia River Estuary, by building a massive renewable diesel refinery. These explorations show how city, state and federal governments and regulatory agencies are swayed by the fossil fuel industry’s self-promotion as purveyors of clean, low-carbon energy. Chasing Chimeras scrutinizes how state and federal programs promote and fund renewable diesel, biogas and hydrogen development, while disincentivizing the adoption of proven climate solutions.
CHASING CHIMERAS Premiered at Cinema 21 in Portland on Sunday, April 27, 2025
Other Screenings:
Cinema 21
Portland
St. Johns Twin Cinemas
Portland
Terwilliger Plaza
Portland
Ashby Art Space, 2035 Ashby Avenue, Berkeley
Sponsored by Food & Water Watch
Listen to/download the radio documentary
CHASING CHIMERAS premieres on KBOO-FM 90.7 Monday, January 27 at 10 am Pacific time.
Funding for this program was provided by the Regional Arts & Culture Council, the Fund for Investigative Journalism, Mt. Hood Cable Regulatory Commission Community Grants, Steven and Jan Marx, June Sekera and Diane Dick.
Artwork by Kandace Manning
Producer Barbara Bernstein is a musician, composer, performance artist and radio producer. Besides her recent documentary Once a Braided River, her award-winning radio documentaries, internationally broadcast on public radio stations, include two pieces about the struggle to stop the Pacific Northwest from becoming a fossil fuel export hub: Holding the Thin Green Line and Sacrifice Zones; Fighting Goliath (the turbulent growth of tar sands development); Sculpted By Fire (the role of fire in shaping western forests and sustaining healthy forest ecosystems); Salmonlands (the cultural significance of diminishing salmon runs in the Northwest) and Rivers That Were (the industrialization of the Colorado and Columbia Rivers). You can hear more of her work here.