Comment by accidentallfact

I mean that steampunk looks plausible, because it indeed seems to be purely a historical coincidence that electricity was developed at the same time. They are unrelated, one doesn't follow from the other in any way, so there is no obvious need to have both.

You pretty much need to have both chemistry and electricity, or neither.

Even Jules Verne understood the impossibility (or at least absurd impracticality) of a steam powered submarine, and made Nautilus electric.

It's unclear if internal combustion engines would be developed without electricity, and to what degree they would become practical.

I'm not sure about semiconductors, but the discovery does seem fairly random, and it seems plausible that electronics could just go on with vacuum tubes.

It seems perfectly plausible that nuclear wasn't noticed or practically developed, but, as I said, it just isn't an interesting setting.