As far as energy is concerned, one potential big POD is in the ballpark....
1956 - the Suez Crisis causes a major energy crisis in Western Europe, as a result of oil being restricted from the petroleum-producing nations of the Middle East. This doesn't last long but is seen as a major potential problem for Europe, which needs that oil. The expansion of nuclear power speeds up, but there are other problems.
Hearing this, a delegation from the South African Coal and Oil Company goes to London and invites the guys from British Coal to help them make a case for a major development of the Fischer-Tropsch process. Sasol by this point is well-established in the technology (their first plant at Veereniging beginning operation in 1950) and they pitch it as a solution to Britain's need for oil - after all, Britain has large coal reserves, and demand is dropping as more homes switch to petroleum or electricity for heat and dieselization reduces demand for coal from British Rail. The British government enthusiastically supports the idea, and seeing the future coming, the British government in 1959 merges several ministries and crown corporations into the giant British Energy Corporation, which is responsible for the production of oil. Sasol's move makes then a mountain of money in development fees, and they use the funds to be both be involved in Europe as well as expand operations to North America in 1960s and then to Japan in the early 1970s.
By the time of the 1973 energy crisis, twelve such facilities in Britain have taken over nearly all of the demand for coal in Britain and produce over 30% of the United Kingdom's gasoline and diesel fuel demands. This technological advancement allows Britain to weather the energy crisis rather better than the Western norm - and the discovery of oil in the North Sea makes it genuinely possible for Britain to supply its own energy needs. Now having a real need for the fuel, Britain's coal industry goes through extensive modernization in the 1960s and 1970s, which far less industrial unrest than OTL. British Energy and Sasol expand these operations worldwide, becoming world leaders in the production of synthetic fuels. In America, tightening sanctions against apartheid in South African lead to the entry into the field of Hess Petroleum, the mid-sized American oil company which uses its own cash reserves to jump into the game in a big way. Dozens of such coal-to-liquids plants are built all over the world in the 1970s and 1980s, and by the 2000s are responsible for both a major portion of the world's liquid fuels production, but have also effectively killed coal-fired power plants in much of the world.
In North America, one could also take my old Transport America pretty much wholesale - the basic premise being that the Interstate Highway System is built, but Eisenhower remembers the herculean efforts put in by American railroads during WWII and decides to make sure they are part of the future. This has many effects on railroad modernization, but its funds towards urban transit are such that General Motors gets into the building of mass transit vehicles in the mid 1950s and as a result National City Lines does not dismantle as many light rail lines as IOTL, which after the 1973 energy crisis are quickly electrified. American railroads use the 1950s and 1960s funds to invest heavily in modernization, particularly in the fields of traffic pickup (namely buying numerous smaller trucking firms to act as pickup firms for loads for the railroads, as well as developing fiberglass and metal skids and cargo containers to make the logistics of shipping by rail easier) and signalling, allowing freight railroads to improve their load counts. After a turbulent 1970s, which sees numerous mergers and consolidations, as well as electrification in a whole bunch of places, the industry reorganizes in a big way, and as driver shortages and fuel costs drive up the cost of long-distance trucking, by the 1980s the majority of long-distance freight traffic moves across America by rail. The 1970s see Penn Central (and then Amtrak) develop the first "high-speed" lines in America with their Metroliners, which run at 135 mph speeds, which prove to be a commercial success. True high-speed rail expands into America through both gas-turbine electric trainsets and electrified high-speed trains in 1970s and 1980s, with true European-style HSR beginning operation in the 1990s in the Northeast Corridor, Texas and California. 9/11 shuts down commercial air travel for several days, forcing Amtrak and the existing HSR lines to really push themselves to haul people - but they get it done in a big way, and subsequently when the airlines are bailed out after 9/11, Amtrak gets a ten-figure sum of money and is told to get cracking on making a real HSR system for America, which enters service in the Northeast and Midwest in the late 2000s. This, I should point out, also butterflies Three Mile Island, and so while the anti-nuclear movement exists, its not nearly as influential as IOTL, and many more nuclear reactors are built in the aftermath of the energy crisis.
