Traditionally, the United Kingdom was a large producer of coal, with some of it, such as Cardiff coal, being of such high quality that it was exported across the world for maritime use. In the 1950s the United Kingdom became the first nation to use nuclear energy for power generation using a series of gas cooled reactors that offered the potential for infrastructure, safety, cost, and efficiency advantages over Soviet and American water cooled designs. Later in the 1960s, the United Kingdom discovered one of the largest petroleum deposits in Europe in the North Sea. The North Sea was developed in the 1970s, around the time that the United Kingdom more or less forced petroleum and natural gas rich Bahrain, Qatar, and the Trucial States to become independent and cut defensive ties (they even offered to pay for British defense, but were rejected).
The British Empire and even the United Kingdom itself seems to have been a good position in terms of energy. I'm wondering if it might have been possible for this starting advantage to have been developed into a major advantage, turning the United Kingdom/British Empire into a full fledged energy superpower, and perhaps even helping it to retain the political, economic, and military clout to remain a full fledged superpower, or at least a powerful great power.