I think Hubris is right, whatever the explanation is for the absence of petroleum there would be much less interdependence between nations. This of course would lead to a series of extreme butterflies when it comes to international relations, wealth, and power.
Coal and natural gas will probably remain the major energy sources for quite a long time. But development and progress in electricity is likely to be much quicker than OTL.
In transportation dense rail networks would probably remain the main way people get around. But the electric car might appear around the 1950s and by the 1960s there would be a rather large market like our our auto industry.
With more development on the electric field the computer age is likely to arrive sooner as well.
If electricity does become major energy carrier the nations that can produce it will be given an advantage absent in OTL. It is likely that we would see some rather wealthy countries with lots of hydroelectric (or other resources).
Now a world like this does not necessarily mean a cleaner greener world. Coal will remain in use for much longer, and due to petroleum's absence, in greater use. Coal is much dirtier than petroleum. And until there is research into other ways of creating energy it will coal burning plants would be the way in which electricity is provided. So TTL might actually suffer from pollution problems much sooner than OTL. Once electricity and batteries come along (in greater masses than OTL) the mining for certain elements in them would be quite destructive.
Then the thing that has not been mentioned in nuclear power. A world that jumps from coal into nuclear power is likely to develop a "nuclear revolution" akin to that of the industrial. Once it is discovered there would be much more research and resources poured into its development.