Stand by for howls of protests from the usual anti-business bleeding hearts as those most villainous of companies, Shell and BP, report their first quarter results this week.

Fund manager Gerrard expects Shell, which is in the City's bad books for cooking up some dodgy oil reserves figures and which is trying to transform itself by welding together its UK and Dutch operations, to report pre-tax profits of $ 5 . 1 billion ( £ 2.66 billion) for the January-March period compared with $ 4.7 billion (£2.45 billion) at the same stage of last year on Thursday.

BP is predicted to weigh in with pre- tax profits of $4.3 billion (£2.2 billion), versus $3.5 billion (£1.8 billion) a year ago, on Tuesday.

The problem with big numbers such as those is that they will inevitably compared with rising petrol prices charged to motorists at the pumps.

In that context, it's easy to whip up accusations of profiteering.

Of course, the global oil market is currently hugely in favour of the likes of Shell and BP and they are making hay (ok, big profits). What company run on logic instead of sentiment wouldn't?

But it's too easy to forget that oil companies incur massive upstream costs when it comes to exploring for the black gold in the first place and then getting it out of the ground.

Downstream refining and retail profits help to pay for all that: work that has to go on regardless of the market price of crude.

No-one would deny that the developed world's almost total dependence upon oil and petroleum entails huge risks, both in terms of the effect upon the planet and possible disruptions to supply.

But at the moment there is no viable alternative. The boom in windfarms seems to be driven by an unpleasant combination of eco-naivety and ruthless opportunism.

Even if windfarms were ever capable of supplying more than a small fraction of Britain's energy needs, their impact on what remains of our areas of wilderness would be too high a price to pay.

How ironic that so-called Greens want to clutter the countryside with visually intrusive and noisy industrial installations.

At the same time, major car companies such as Toyota and General Motors are carrying out some worthwhile experimentation with hydrogenpowered vehicles and hybrid engines that combine internal combustion and electric power.

But these are a long way away from being offered to the car-buying public as anything other than an expensive, relatively untried, option.

What is needed right now is a sensible and grown up debate on what we should be doing to prepare for the day when the oil really does start to run out.

A report yesterday that representatives of Shell and BP are ready to take part in the setting up of a possible new "super" ministry for energy looks promising.

Not least because it would supersede the hopeless Department of Trade and Industry - an organisation that really does deserve a good kicking, if only because of its inept handling of the MG Rover collapse.