GE CEO Jeff Immelt, already in hot water for poor stock performance, can’t afford to lose his gamble on renewable energy.

Faced with this threat, Immelt is shrewdly using his NBC news empire to promote climate change fears and wind turbines as a sound energy alternative.

Al Gore was the featured guest on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on July 20. For almost the entire program, Gore spoke about climate change, bashed oil exploration and touted his idea to generate the country’s electricity needs from carbon-free sources, including wind turbines. Gore did support the use of coal, but only if it was associated with carbon capture and sequestration – another GE technology.

GE’s cable business channel CNBC has also promoted wind energy in its news programming. T. Boone Pickens was given air time on “Squawk Box,” CNBC’s early morning news program, to present his energy plan. A major thrust of the Pickens plan involves a significant increase in the use of natural gas and wind – two areas in which Pickens has major investments. Indeed, Pickens is building the world’s largest wind farm in Texas, and his company recently ordered about $2 billion worth of GE turbines.

While Pickens has said he is for all forms of domestic energy, including oil exploration, the imagery in his TV ad campaign – burning oil fields contrasting with wind turbines on green fields – clearly denigrates oil. During the commercial, Pickens says “I'm T. Boone Pickens. I've been an oil man my whole life, but this is one emergency we can't drill our way out of. And I have a plan.”

The scheming of Immelt and Gore undermine our national interest. For economic and national security reasons Americans desperately need natural resource development in our own backyard.