My suggestion that Chu’s appointment to DOE meant that Obama would not appoint a physicist/energy expert to science advisor was wrong. Harvard’s John Holdren will be science advisor, Science is reporting.

Strong indications are that President-elect Barack Obama has picked physicist John Holdren to be the president’s science adviser.

A top adviser to the Obama campaign and international expert on energy and climate, Holdren would bolster Obama’s team in those areas. Both are crowded portfolios. Obama has already created a new position to coordinate energy issues in the White House staffed by well-connected Carole Browner, former head of the Environmental Protection Agency, and nominated a Nobel-prize winning physicist, Steve Chu, to head the Department of Energy. That could complicate how the Office of Science and Technology Policy, which Holdren will run, will manage energy and environmental policy. “OSTP will have to be redefined in relation to these other centers of formulating policy,” says current White House science adviser Jack Marburger.

I agree. Expect some conflicts, a prediction I am more sure of than my science advisor handicapping ;-)