Mitchell Swartz
Photo credit: www.alienscientist.com

On Jan. 20, 2012, the hype about Andrea Rossi and his fraudulent energy claims was close to its peak. Rossi had been making claims of demonstrating megawatt-scale power output in commercial LENR devices for close to a year. Mitchell Swartz had been one of the most prolific promoters of Rossi.

On that day, Swartz posted a press release on his Web site claiming that Swartz's company Jet Energy had "successfully scored" a fusion demonstration at MIT. He claimed that his device "demonstrated a significant energy gain greater than 10." This press release did not disclose the specific energy values: input, output, or net energy. He did not provide a link to or mention how readers could learn additional information.

In February, one of our readers, a LENR researcher who was present at the demonstration, had informed us about Swartz's claim and asked us to look into it. We quickly learned that the power level of Swartz’s “significant energy gain” was less than one-tenth of one Watt. That researcher told us that the peak power output Swartz measured in that experiment was only 18 milliWatts. We sent a news inquiry to Swartz right away and asked for details. He did not respond, and we published our initial story, "Swartz Makes Misleading Claim of LENR Excess Heat ," on Feb. 3, 2012.

The following day, we had still not heard back from Swartz, but another researcher informed us that the peak power level was actually 80 milliWatts, not 18. Our first source had misread one of Swartz’s graphs. It’s a trivial difference: neither 18 nor 80 milliwatts of thermal output power would reflect "significant energy" production.

Another source had misread the duration of the heat excursion. They are not the first LENR researchers to have difficulty reading or understanding Swartz’s reports.

We published a correction about the excess-heat value immediately: "LENR Researchers Reject Significance of Swartz’s Claim." We explained that Swartz’s results were no different from those of thousands of other LENR experiments in the last 23 years. We quoted a LENR researcher who provided context for Swartz's claim: "In 23 years, he has yet to sustain anything more than 1 watt. There is little in Swartz’s work to get excited about."

On Feb. 5, after and in response to our Feb. 3 and Feb. 4 articles, Swartz published his data and charts on his Web site, embedded in a vitriolic and defamatory character attack against New Energy Times Editor Steven B. Krivit.

Swartz’s response confirmed the 18/80 milliwatt mistake we reported and the heat production duration mistake we reported, both relatively minor errors. His response confirmed that his heat output level (80 mW) was indeed insignificant. We responded in a third article on Feb. 6: "Swartz Responds to Our Reports About His Claims."