New Year's 2012 Shortages Forecast Worldwide, and Not Just Norwegian Butter: A New Yorker's Opinion [VIDEO]

The great Norwegian butter shortage got me to thinking that shortages of 2012 might be just the ticket to send my faithful readers off to a rockin' New Year's Eve celebration.

But be of good cheer, every scarcity is an opportunity, either to help alleviate the needs of the many, or invest for the profit of the few. Or both, if you pick the right investment strategy. I leave it to each of you to make a resolution about dealing with scarcity in 2012 as you see fit. Maybe you will consume less, or smarter, maybe you will get involved, as they say. There is an election coming up that might just have a teensy influence on how these shortages are dealt with. One thing we can all agree on though, right, I didn't make these up.

So first, that famous Norwegian butter shortage and this fabulous (but somewhat NSFW) video from Norwegian comic and blogger, Bjørnar Løberg:

Power Shortages

 "Namibia will face significant power shortage as from next year until 2015. By winter next year, the country will be lacking 80MW to cover its demand and the deficiency will continue to rise every year, accumulating to a predicted shortage of 300MW by 2015. 80MW is enough to supply the households and industries of both Windhoek and Okahandja.This bleak scenario was painted by the Managing Director of Namibia's power provider Nampower, Paulinus Shilamba, on Tuesday in the capital. The growing mining sector has been identified as the main driver of this development."

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"Namibia's main mining products include diamonds, uranium, gold, zinc, copper and lead. Namibia is one of the world's largest diamond producers and uranium."

China is facing coal shortages in 2012, so watch out for all those things made in China:

"China will continue to face coal shortages in 2012, amid strong local demand and limited coal transportation capacity, said Huang Qing, board secretary of China Shenhua Energy Co., addressing the 2012 China Galaxy Securities Investment Strategy Seminar held in Sanya City of Hainan Province in December.
China's urbanization rate grew from 19.4 percent in 1980 to 46.6 percent in 2010 and is expected to grow to about 51 percent by 2015, Huang said."

That's a lot more coal, and other energy sources, which is why China is buying everywhere, including, recently, Iraq.

Hard Drive Shortage

Thailand, because of the floods, has put a big dent in hard drive availability for 2012, and that will limit the number of PCs that will ship in the first quarter of 2012, according to market research firm IHS iSuppli. "It's analysts are cutting their first-quarter PC forecast by 3.8 million units-to 84.2 million-and reducing their full-year growth numbers for 2012, saying worldwide PC shipments for the entire year will rise 6.8 percent over 2011, down from the 9.5 percent growth the firm forecasted in August.Getting hit the hardest will be notebooks, which are the systems most impacted by the HDD shortages, the IHS iSuppli analysts said in a report Dec. 8. They are now predicting that notebook shipments will grow 10.1 percent year-over-year in the first-quarter 2012, down from the 13.8 percent they initially forecasted."

For a more general review of the energy issue:

Worldwide energy shortage site

Drug Shortages

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