Gah! I read the thread but somehow missed that post. To hide my embarrassment I will now dump on this theory -- in this reality there are actually more dinosaurs so it would follow that there are more fossil fuels. In addition, it seemed to be a heavily plastics-based society, which would be odd if petrochemicals were difficult to come by. True, plastics can be made from vegetable oils, which might explain the shortage of vegetables, but then they would likely have bio-fuels as well. Unless solar energy is simply more economical given the amount of desert that exists. Or something.
