Quoting from the methernitha website's free energy page:
The two conterrotating discs generate an electrostatic charge. One disc represents the earth, the other the cloud.
This would seem to imply that one disc is charged positively and the other negatively. This is different than a wimshurst machine where the area of the disc near the edge has both positive and negative charge in different areas. The following are indications on the 50cm machine that indicate this is so.
All segments are polarized by one grid in center
The following is a front view photo of the middle of the 50cm machine.
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Further evidence that the woven strips in the photo above are the segments on the disc face is that Paul Baumann said 100-watt resistors connected all the segments on this machine. Possibly these resistors are behind the black area that surrounds the above center woven area.
Pickup electrodes at sides use polarity reversal trick
Since one disc is positive and the other is negative, how can the side pickup grids be picking up from both discs? After all, there is only one wire coming from these side grids. The answer is that the grids for picking up from the back disc are more complicated than just a single grid, as the following picture illustrates.
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Since there are two grids in the back on each side, if they were not electrically connected then the induction effect would be the same as if there were only one grid. However, as the diagram below illustrates, if they are electrically connected in the manner shown, the capacitance between them could have the effect shown. I may be a bit out of my league here so please let me know if you know otherwise. (The use of electrets is another theory of mine and can be replaced by other methods for disc charging and is unimportant for this discussion.)
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If the above works then the fact that there are two grids in the back on each side lends further evidence to the theory that the discs are opposite polarities, necessitating the two grids.
