Veritasium "How Electricity Actually Works"

[electrodacus]

If you agree with the above (current flows into the left hand side of the capacitor, and that current is flowing out of the right hand side of the capacitor, as it is being charged and both current flows stop when capacitor is fully charged) then you agree that during that time energy was flowing through the capacitor.

FTFY.

I assure you that energy is flowing in to capacitor and that distinction is very important.
It is irrelevant what else is in series with the capacitor and of course that thing in this case a resistor will see that charge current.

In case of Derek's experiment those first 65ns where used to charge the long transmission line and that charge current passed trough the lamp/resistor then after that the next 65ns the energy from the transmission line was discharged also in the lamp so nothing was lost. After those first 65ns the electron wave got to lamp through wires and continued to supply all the energy.
At no point in time energy was flowing to lamp/resistor outside the wires. Each unit of energy no matter how insignificant was delivered through wires and the wire resistance heated up from caring that energy.

You can not charge a capacitor by just connecting one of the terminals. Charging means moving electrons from one side of the capacitor to the other creating an excess of free electrons on one side and a deficit on the other side.
The dielectric can be anything including air or even vacuum and that is not what has the stored energy. The energy is contained in the capacitor plate same as transmission wires.
I'm sorry I fail at explaining things.

[T3sl4co1l]

I sort of get frustrated and annoyed of explaining what in/out and trough means.

So current is going into, but it's not?  And it's going through, but it's not?  And energy is going into, but it's also not?

It seems you can't produce a coherent description of any of the particulars in these matters, in addition to use of the above words... at least not in terms that anyone else can make any meaning of.  If it's so frustrating and annoying, then... why bother?

You know the phrase, "better to be thought a fool..."?

Tim

[hamster_nz]

You can not charge a capacitor by just connecting one of the terminals.

If I were demonstrate to you an experiment which would charge a capacitor, without attaching any source to either terminal, and doesn't involve stupid things like firing ions at the terminals would that settle it for you?

To make things really clear, how about we have the capacitor as a 10cm^2 sheets of metal, separated by a suitable insulator?

The only other thing that is required is a removable switch, to discharge the capacitor when desired - say a screwdriver tip to short the two metal plates together, and of course some agreed way of measuring if the capacitor is charged or not. I suggest a standard DMM, that is used after the charging procedure?

Now two 10cm x 10cm metal sheets don't have much capacitance, so you will not get mA out of it. So don't expect wonders.. (heck this might be possible with just baking foil separated by tissues, I might give it a try!)

Are you game enough?

[SandyCox]

(heck this might be possible with just baking foil separated by tissues, I might give it a try!)

That is how I made capacitors when I was a child.

[SandyCox]

Yes. This will work. Make a four-layer capacitor with foil and paper. Charge the outer two layers. You will then be able to extract energy from the capacitor formed by the inner two layers.

[electrodacus]

So current is going into, but it's not?  And it's going through, but it's not?  And energy is going into, but it's also not?

It seems you can't produce a coherent description of any of the particulars in these matters, in addition to use of the above words... at least not in terms that anyone else can make any meaning of.  If it's so frustrating and annoying, then... why bother?

You know the phrase, "better to be thought a fool..."?

Tim

You have a 3V supply and at some particular point in time 1.5V drop across the capacitor and 1.5V drop across the resistor and say the current is 1A
Then you have 1.5V * 1 A = 1.5W going in to capacitor (being stored) with no resulting heat so no work done and you have same 1.5W on the resistor all ending up as heat so not stored.
So from the supplied 3W only 1.5W across the resistor is doing work so energy is being used and 1.5W is stored no work is done with that.

Similarly say power supply is set to output constant current 1A and you connect that to a capacitor any value and while there is current flow there is no work done as current flows in to capacitor and is being stored
Then second case you have a 1.5Ohm resistor connected to the same constant current 1A output power supply and all this 1.5W will go through resistor resulting in to heat so work is done.

If you understand the above example let me know how you explain in a better way energy flowing in/out of capacitor vs energy flowing through a resistor as there is a big difference between the two.

[electrodacus]

Yes. This will work. Make a four-layer capacitor with foil and paper. Charge the outer two layers. You will then be able to extract energy from the capacitor formed by the inner two layers.

That is exactly like having 3 capacitors in series that you charge and then remove the middle one.  It only proves what I'm saying.
If you push 3Ws worth of energy "in to" those 3 series capacitors (distance equal between plates so they have equal capacity) then each of them will contain 1Ws and none of the energy did any work it was just stored so no 3Ws worth of heat or visible photos or anything like that just stored for later use.


If my definition of going in/out or trough seems unclear let me know how will you word the difference between doing work or just storing energy ?

[Naej]

You don't call wires, capacitors, coils and antennae "Maxwell stuff" do you?

Why not? Will they get offended?

Clearly you're not doing this so why don't you answer your own question?

Well you say energy flows through vacuum just to mock engineers, why can't I say it flows through wires?

You don't get it. I AM an engineer. If you want to contradict the experimental data, knock yourself out.

I don't, I'm just saying energy flows through wires, which contradicts no experimental data whatsoever.
If there were experimental data supporting the energy part of the slogan "Wires transfer charge. Space transfers energy." we would have known about them and they would be in books. 

[HuronKing]

I don't, I'm just saying energy flows through wires, which contradicts no experimental data whatsoever.
If there were experimental data supporting the energy part of the slogan "Wires transfer charge. Space transfers energy." we would have known about them and they would be in books. 

You've not read Hayt then?

The question of where the energy is stored in an electric field has not yet been answered. Potential energy can never be pinned down precisely in terms of physical location. Someone lifts a pencil, and the pencil acquires potential energy. Is the energy stored in the molecules of the pencil, in the gravitational field between the pencil and the earth, or in some obscure place? Is the energy in a capacitor stored in the charges themselves, in the field, or where? No one can offer any proof for his or her own private opinion, and the matter of deciding may be left to the philosophers. Electromagnetic field theory makes it easy to believe that the energy of an electric field or a charge distribution is stored in the field itself...

Engineering Electromagnetics p.106 (8th Edition)

He goes on to make an argument for why the field interpretation is preferred.

And when he gets to waveguides, there is no question what Hayt thinks:

Stated more generally, all fields in a good conductor such as copper are essentially zero at distances greater than a few skin depths from the surface. Any current density or electric field intensity established at the surface of a good conductor decays rapidly as we progress into the conductor. Electromagnetic energy is not transmitted in the interior of a conductor; it travels in the region surrounding the conductor, while the conductor merely guides the waves. We will consider guided propagation in more detail in Chapter 13.

Engineering Electromagnetics p.407 (8th Edition)

I'm fine with folks digging in to "charges store and transfer energy" (even if I think their interpretation is clunky and inelegant for explaining how energy can cross an air gap so this is not what I teach in my motor laboratories) but let's not pretend there aren't reputable textbooks that firmly take the 'energy is in the fields' interpretation of Maxwell and the experiments done on electromagnetic radiation.

[electrodacus]

One of you mentioned a Wimshurst machine (converts mechanical energy in to electrical energy) and I found a video correctly explains how it works so if you are able to understand his high quality video and more importantly correct explanation then you will understand why energy travels through wires.
There are a few places on that machine where energy travels outside metal conductors but energy is still carried by electrons and not fields as electrons travel through a small space between wires. Hes animation shows that effect very nicely.

I think that is a fantastic video and unless you do not agree that is what happens there it debunks Derek's claim that energy travels outside the wire in his experiment.

[bsfeechannel]

Clearly you're not doing this so why don't you answer your own question?

Cause that's your assumption.

I don't, I'm just saying energy flows through wires, which contradicts no experimental data whatsoever.

It contradicts all the experimental data since the times of the discovery of electromagnetism in the 19th century until this very day. But if you want to ignore that, be my guest.

If there were experimental data supporting the energy part of the slogan "Wires transfer charge. Space transfers energy." we would have known about them and they would be in books. 

They are. I even showed you where this is in the very first book on the matter. You probably haven't read many books on the subject.

[bsfeechannel]

I think that is a fantastic video and unless you do not agree that is what happens there it debunks Derek's claim that energy travels outside the wire in his experiment.

Absolutely nothing in this video debunks Derek's experiment. Charges are conducted by conductors, and the energy is transferred by the fields through the various dielectric materials (air, plastic, etc.)

So  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[electrodacus]

Absolutely nothing in this video debunks Derek's experiment. Charges are conducted by conductors, and the energy is transferred by the fields through the various dielectric materials (air, plastic, etc.)

So  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Please pay more attention to the video.
There is no transfer of energy between the rotating disks and laden jars (large capacitors) until voltage is high enough to have electrons travel the gap
Similarly when you have a spark between the spark gap energy flows from capacitors trough conductors and finally through the arc (plasma).
There is only 20V in Derek's video and about 1m of gap thus no electrons will flow at that low of a voltage and such a large gap. The energy flow you see in those first 65ns are due to transmission line (capacitor) being charged and all energy travels through wires as it is traveling in this generator where the arc/plasma is also a conductor.

[Naej]

I don't, I'm just saying energy flows through wires, which contradicts no experimental data whatsoever.

It contradicts all the experimental data since the times of the discovery of electromagnetism in the 19th century until this very day. But if you want to ignore that, be my guest.

If there were experimental data supporting the energy part of the slogan "Wires transfer charge. Space transfers energy." we would have known about them and they would be in books. 

They are. I even showed you where this is in the very first book on the matter. You probably haven't read many books on the subject.

What book? What experiment? What was predicted by "energy flows through wires" and not found in experiments?
Why can't I find them in all modern books: Jackson, Griffiths, Haus Melcher and so on?

[bsfeechannel]

Please pay more attention to the video.
There is no transfer of energy between the rotating disks and laden jars (large capacitors) until voltage is high enough to have electrons travel the gap

Conversely, there is no wire between the collectors and the sectors. So your claim that wires carry the energy is false.

[bsfeechannel]

Why can't I find them in all modern books: Jackson, Griffiths, Haus Melcher and so on?

Maybe you're functionally illiterate, who knows?

[HuronKing]

Why can't I find them in all modern books: Jackson, Griffiths, Haus Melcher and so on?

Maybe you're functionally illiterate, who knows?

Worth a read:
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsta.2017.0457#RSTA20170457C39

One problem that Heaviside used to illustrate the energy current concept was that of a battery connected by a simple circuit to a resistor load in his 1886–1887 work ‘The transfer of energy and its application to wires. Energy current’ [33]—effectively an analysis of a ‘twin wire transmission line’. The standard approach is to assume that electrical energy flows inside metal wires (confinement), but Heaviside's energy current approach dictates otherwise. Poynting had first published on this arrangement [31], which was criticized by Heaviside due to Poynting's misconception of the nature of the external electric field surrounding the wires [32,34]. Poynting considered only a tangential electric field in the axis of the wire, combined with the circumferential magnetic field, resulting in an inwardly radial component of the energy flux density, W, only. Thus, given no energy flux in the direction of the electric current—how does energy get from the battery to the load? This is not answered by conventional circuit theory. Heaviside argued that this ‘Poynting component’ is simply the heat lost due to Joule heating in the conductor; however, a more prominent component exists outside the wire due to a radial electric field—the surface charges on the conductors that set up the field and maintain the electric current are responsible for the energy transfer external to the conductors. This complete field picture then presents a ‘map’ of the energy flow. Heaviside showed for the first time that a radial electric field and a circumferential magnetic field produce an ‘energy current’, a flow of electromagnetic energy in the space surrounding the electric conductors, directed from the battery along the axis of the conductor towards and entering the load.

This remarkable result is one that is rarely presented, but that Heaviside gives in great detail in his Electrical papers, vol. II, which have recently been the subject of a rigorous modern mathematical treatment [39], confirming Heaviside's results. It is readily shown that the energy current approach is compatible with the circuit theory approach by applying the integral formulation of the Poynting theorem to the problem, determining the power dissipated in the load resistor as VI, as dictated by conventional ‘confined’ circuit theory. This ‘energy current approach’ gives physical insight, but requires detailed knowledge of the electric and magnetic fields surrounding the analysed circuits. It complements his work on electromagnetic wave propagation by analysing the energy associated with the wave and also his work on electromagnetic diffusion in which he found that the current in the wire penetrates from the outside surface inwards.

Earlier in the article, the controversy is addressed head on. Even more than 140+ years later, Heaviside is still stirring the pot:

It is well known that this approach is useful in antenna theory and microwave circuits. However, Heaviside extended the use of the theorem to DC electric circuits. In doing so, he reversed the contemporary view of electric current, proposing that the electric and magnetic fields due to the current are the primitives, rather than being a result of the motion of the electronic charge in the conductor. This is a controversial viewpoint and, in his Electrical papers, the phrase ‘we reverse this’ [36], referring to the ‘current in the wire being set up by the energy transmitted through the medium around it’, reverberates even to this day. This view is supported by his work on electromagnetic diffusion (previous section) and the nature of the electromagnetic field and current density penetration of an electrical conductor subjected to a step current. This is discussed in a modern context by Feynman [37], who showed that the electromagnetic momentum is ‘required’ in order to conserve angular mechanical momentum associated with the energy flux vector W, and a detailed historical discussion is presented by Nahin [12]. The ‘uniqueness’ of the vector W and the physical existence of mysterious and counterintuitive circulating ‘energy currents’ emerging from static fields (e.g. a point electric charge with a superimposed magnetic dipole) has been the subject of some debate among many scientists over a long period of time. Heaviside was the first to consider these issues in 1893 [38].

[HuronKing]

EEVBlog drew attention to this in his original response video to Veritasium but it's worth bringing up again, especially since Feynman gets a shout-out from the Royal Society:
https://www.feynmanlectures.caltech.edu/II_27.html

But it [eq.27.20] tells us a peculiar thing: that when we are charging a capacitor, the energy is not coming down the wires; it is coming in through the edges of the gap. That’s what this theory says!

And of course Feynman has this to say (which Dave also drew attention to):

You no doubt begin to get the impression that the Poynting theory at least partially violates your intuition as to where energy is located in an electromagnetic field. You might believe that you must revamp all your intuitions, and, therefore have a lot of things to study here. But it seems really not necessary. You don’t need to feel that you will be in great trouble if you forget once in a while that the energy in a wire is flowing into the wire from the outside, rather than along the wire. It seems to be only rarely of value, when using the idea of energy conservation, to notice in detail what path the energy is taking. The circulation of energy around a magnet and a charge seems, in most circumstances, to be quite unimportant. It is not a vital detail, but it is clear that our ordinary intuitions are quite wrong.

Perhaps its possible to ignore all this business and retreat back to the hydraulic arguments about electrons being like water in pipes. Hayt concedes it might just be a philosophical problem - but yet he takes a firm position on which interpretation he prefers. So did Heaviside. So did Kraus. And even Feynman to an extent. He was lecturing to a room of freshmen/sophomore physics students in the 1960s. If he were talking to a room of engineers designing waveguides, the emphasis would be very different.

Our intuition is wrong - and these properties of fields are important if we think Maxwellian Theory means anything.

[PlainName]

I think that is a fantastic video and unless you do not agree that is what happens there it debunks Derek's claim that energy travels outside the wire in his experiment.

Remind me, who was it that said:

Internet is also fool of java type animations and explanations of capacitors and most of them are incorrectly made as the author did not understand the physics and made wrong assumptions.

[Naej]

EEVBlog drew attention to this in his original response video to Veritasium but it's worth bringing up again, especially since Feynman gets a shout-out from the Royal Society:
https://www.feynmanlectures.caltech.edu/II_27.html

But it [eq.27.20] tells us a peculiar thing: that when we are charging a capacitor, the energy is not coming down the wires; it is coming in through the edges of the gap. That’s what this theory says!

And of course Feynman has this to say (which Dave also drew attention to):

You no doubt begin to get the impression that the Poynting theory at least partially violates your intuition as to where energy is located in an electromagnetic field. You might believe that you must revamp all your intuitions, and, therefore have a lot of things to study here. But it seems really not necessary. You don’t need to feel that you will be in great trouble if you forget once in a while that the energy in a wire is flowing into the wire from the outside, rather than along the wire. It seems to be only rarely of value, when using the idea of energy conservation, to notice in detail what path the energy is taking. The circulation of energy around a magnet and a charge seems, in most circumstances, to be quite unimportant. It is not a vital detail, but it is clear that our ordinary intuitions are quite wrong.

Perhaps its possible to ignore all this business and retreat back to the hydraulic arguments about electrons being like water in pipes. Hayt concedes it might just be a philosophical problem - but yet he takes a firm position on which interpretation he prefers. So did Heaviside. So did Kraus. And even Feynman to an extent. He was lecturing to a room of freshmen/sophomore physics students in the 1960s. If he were talking to a room of engineers designing waveguides, the emphasis would be very different.

Our intuition is wrong - and these properties of fields are important if we think Maxwellian Theory means anything.

You found some nice quotes like:

But it [eq.27.20] tells us a peculiar thing: that when we are charging a capacitor, the energy is not coming down the wires; it is coming in through the edges of the gap. That’s what this theory says!

The standard approach is to assume that electrical energy flows inside metal wires (confinement), but Heaviside's energy current approach dictates otherwise.

which explains clearly that it is a theory dictating where energy flows, not experiments.
Much like bsfeechannel, they don't point to experiments, because they cannot.
And here:

You no doubt begin to get the impression that the Poynting theory at least partially violates your intuition as to where energy is located in an electromagnetic field. You might believe that you must revamp all your intuitions, and, therefore have a lot of things to study here. But it seems really not necessary. You don’t need to feel that you will be in great trouble if you forget once in a while that the energy in a wire is flowing into the wire from the outside, rather than along the wire. It seems to be only rarely of value, when using the idea of energy conservation, to notice in detail what path the energy is taking. The circulation of energy around a magnet and a charge seems, in most circumstances, to be quite unimportant. It is not a vital detail, but it is clear that our ordinary intuitions are quite wrong.

You can see that intuitions being "wrong" is not justified by experiments, it's just that it just intuition is not what Poynting's theory tells:

    But it [eq.27.20] tells us a peculiar thing: that when we are charging a capacitor, the energy is not coming down the wires; it is coming in through the edges of the gap. That’s what this theory says!

Much like "siemens" is not the wrong version of "mho" (even when Thomson himself used mho), "energy flows through wires" is not the wrong version of "energy flows through vacuum".

[T3sl4co1l]

And so we come back to a central conceit of the (OP) problem: does energy "flow" matter?  Does it mean anything at all?

Not really.

You can store energy, and release energy, at will.  Nothing wrong with that.  You can say it goes through cables, pipes, whatever.  Also nothing wrong with that.

But it's not particularly important where and how it goes.

The likes of Feynman would be perfectly comfortable with such a view.  Feynman was a huge advocate of Lagrangian mechanics, where the position and path don't matter on an instantaneous basis, instead you solve for them using an overall energy argument.  (Which leads perfectly into QM where, not only is the path unimportant, but indeed the probability of every possible path, including classically-intuitively-absurd paths, has some effect and the total must be taken to find the correct result.)  In classical mechanics of course, we don't have to deal with a superposition of possible paths, but only the one unique path that gives "least action" (minimizes energy).  Then the path, the complete history for all time, of the particle or system or whatever, simply drops out of the equations and we can take its value at any particular point in space or time to find position, velocity, altitude, energy, whatever.

Applied to circuitry, I don't give a rat's ass what energy is flowing in my traces or cables or whatever, just that they handle enough voltage and current to do the job.  That capacity requirement will ultimately be some function of the energy flowing, sure, but that's not what's important, and there are easier ways to calculate it than from the energy or power.

And so, it is even less important whether that energy is "carried in" or "around" the wires.  Dude, it just gets there when it does!

(Even for antenna purposes, I don't know that it's very useful or meaningful, as anything near the active elements is necessarily near-field, and what's going on there, need not be representative of the radiated field.  You don't optimize on near fields, you optimize on radiated fields, you want to know gain and radiation pattern -- who cares what's going on near.)

I think most people here already know this, which is why the bulk of this thread has been occupied with a... different, related curiosity.

Tim

[hamster_nz]

which explains clearly that it is a theory dictating where energy flows, not experiments.
Much like bsfeechannel, they don't point to experiments, because they cannot.

LoL.  Here's two experiments that show where energy flows.

Experiment 1:
Attached a transformer to 220V AC, and get (say) 9V AC @ 0.5A out the other side.  The wires never touch (due to insulation). How does that energy pass through the transformer?

The answer for some here seem to be : It can't. Because the energy flows in the wires. Those Watts coming out the transformer are not from the energy coming in.

Experiment 2:
Store energy into the middle of three capacitors in series. Energy is transferred even though no charges can pass around the entire loop. How is that possible?

The answer for some here seem to be : It isn't possible, because the energy flows in the wires. The energy in that middle capacitor isn't stored electrical energy, it's something else.

Question still not answered:
Why do electrons in a wire drift proportionally to the current (the flow of charge), and not the energy being transferred?

For some the answer is : I'm not sure that they even drift

For others the answer for some here seem to be : Electrons carry not only charge they also carry the energy. They all have little backpacks they carry their electrical energy around it, and when a battery is connect or disconnect a battery they all quickly fill or empty their backpacks as required, sometimes over great distances, exactly at the time the connection is made or broken.

[Naej]

which explains clearly that it is a theory dictating where energy flows, not experiments.
Much like bsfeechannel, they don't point to experiments, because they cannot.

LoL.  Here's two experiments that show where energy flows.

Experiment 1:
Attached a transformer to 220V AC, and get (say) 9V AC @ 0.5A out the other side.  The wires never touch (due to insulation). How does that energy pass through the transformer?

The answer for some here seem to be : It can't. Because the energy flows in the wires. Those Watts coming out the transformer are not from the energy coming in.

Perhaps it's what they say.
What I say is that you get 4.5W consumed in the input, 4.5W produced in the output wires.
Potential is converted into momentum in the primary, this increases the momentum in the secondary which is then converted into potential (9V).

Experiment 2:
Store energy into the middle of three capacitors in series. Energy is transferred even though no charges can pass around the entire loop. How is that possible?

The answer for some here seem to be : It isn't possible, because the energy flows in the wires. The energy in that middle capacitor isn't stored electrical energy, it's something else.

I can't answer for some. But when you charge the exterior capacitors, you create a current and potential difference in the middle one, which stores electrical energy at a rate of VI.

Question still not answered:
Why do electrons in a wire drift proportionally to the current (the flow of charge), and not the energy being transferred?

For some the answer is : I'm not sure that they even drift

For others the answer for some here seem to be : Electrons carry not only charge they also carry the energy. They all have little backpacks they carry their electrical energy around it, and when a battery is connect or disconnect a battery they all quickly fill or empty their backpacks as required, sometimes over great distances, exactly at the time the connection is made or broken.

Mmh I'm not quite sure why you renamed potential energy into 'backpack', but if I were to explain electricity to children, I would consider it. Is potential a forbidden word now?
I'm curious how you see energy moving in vacuum. Is vacuum filling/emptying backpacks too? And giving to electrons/protons?

[electrodacus]

which explains clearly that it is a theory dictating where energy flows, not experiments.
Much like bsfeechannel, they don't point to experiments, because they cannot.

LoL.  Here's two experiments that show where energy flows.

Experiment 1:
Attached a transformer to 220V AC, and get (say) 9V AC @ 0.5A out the other side.  The wires never touch (due to insulation). How does that energy pass through the transformer?

The answer for some here seem to be : It can't. Because the energy flows in the wires. Those Watts coming out the transformer are not from the energy coming in.

Experiment 2:
Store energy into the middle of three capacitors in series. Energy is transferred even though no charges can pass around the entire loop. How is that possible?

The answer for some here seem to be : It isn't possible, because the energy flows in the wires. The energy in that middle capacitor isn't stored electrical energy, it's something else.

Question still not answered:
Why do electrons in a wire drift proportionally to the current (the flow of charge), and not the energy being transferred?

For some the answer is : I'm not sure that they even drift

For others the answer for some here seem to be : Electrons carry not only charge they also carry the energy. They all have little backpacks they carry their electrical energy around it, and when a battery is connect or disconnect a battery they all quickly fill or empty their backpacks as required, sometimes over great distances, exactly at the time the connection is made or broken.

Experiment 1:

You have two energy storage devices with magnetic coupling. Primary creates a magnetic field and the energy to create that magnetic field will either be returned to source if nothing is connected to secondary or it can be used by the secondary as it has access to the same stored magnetic field.
All energy flows through wires so if you have 9V * 0.5A = 4.5W power output then input power will be the same assuming ideal transformer so 4.5W / 220Vac = 0.02A
Energy is being charged and discharged multiple times per second.
But let me ask you this. Why if you apply DC to primary you can not get anything on the secondary ?  With DC you still have energy stored in the magnetic field when you connect the DC source and the magnetic field is still there so how come you can not transfer energy from primary to secondary ?
There will be a lot of energy wasted as heat in the primary with DC so energy travels through wire but you can not get any of that on the secondary as energy can only travel through wire (at least at this low potential).
 

Experiment 2:

Any number of capacitors in series will be seen as a single capacitor and energy will be divided between all those capacitors.
Energy flows only as long as it is needed to charge the capacitors and once the capacitors are fully charged no energy is flowing. None of that energy did any work so no heat or any other sort of radiation for ideal case and some amount of heat with resistance just for as long as the capacitors are not fully charged.

As for question still not answered. They were answered many times you just do not understand what energy is.
Not understanding energy, energy storage and likely much more makes you unable to predict what happens without running an experiment.

If the transfer of energy will have been possible efficiently without wires the there will be no expensive transmission lines.
You can transfer energy outside wires but that requires electrons or photons.
The youtube video I linked today about the electrostatic generator shows energy flowing both through wires and trough air. It is a special case due to very high voltages where air becomes a conductor but energy is not transferred by the electric field but by electrons that jump through dielectric in this case air and is excelentry presented in that video.
There are thousands of volts and small gaps that allows some energy transfer outside the wires in that applications but that space becomes a conductor at those voltages. Nothing like that is present in Derek's 20V and 1m gap experiment and all energy there travels through wires both during initial transient and in steady state DC.

[hamster_nz]

which explains clearly that it is a theory dictating where energy flows, not experiments.
Much like bsfeechannel, they don't point to experiments, because they cannot.

LoL.  Here's two experiments that show where energy flows.

Experiment 1:
Attached a transformer to 220V AC, and get (say) 9V AC @ 0.5A out the other side.  The wires never touch (due to insulation). How does that energy pass through the transformer?

The answer for some here seem to be : It can't. Because the energy flows in the wires. Those Watts coming out the transformer are not from the energy coming in.

Perhaps it's what they say.
What I say is that you get 4.5W consumed in the input, 4.5W produced in the output wires.
Potential is converted into momentum in the primary, this increases the momentum in the secondary which is then converted into potential (9V).

How is that momentum transferred? When a marble rolls past a stationary one, the stationary one doesn't just start moving. Do the charges have little sticks that the prod each other with?

Experiment 2:
Store energy into the middle of three capacitors in series. Energy is transferred even though no charges can pass around the entire loop. How is that possible?

The answer for some here seem to be : It isn't possible, because the energy flows in the wires. The energy in that middle capacitor isn't stored electrical energy, it's something else.

I can't answer for some. But when you charge the exterior capacitors, you create a current and potential difference in the middle one, which stores electrical energy at a rate of VI.

How does that current and potential get into the middle capacitor? And what what is current times potential, if it isn't energy?

Question still not answered:
Why do electrons in a wire drift proportionally to the current (the flow of charge), and not the energy being transferred?

For some the answer is : I'm not sure that they even drift

For others the answer for some here seem to be : Electrons carry not only charge they also carry the energy. They all have little backpacks they carry their electrical energy around it, and when a battery is connect or disconnect a battery they all quickly fill or empty their backpacks as required, sometimes over great distances, exactly at the time the connection is made or broken.

Mmh I'm not quite sure why you renamed potential energy into 'backpack', but if I were to explain electricity to children, I would consider it. Is potential a forbidden word now?
I'm curious how you see energy moving in vacuum. Is vacuum filling/emptying backpacks too? And giving to electrons/protons?

Here are my incoherent ramblings...

For electrostatics, the electric field fill the universe (just like gravity does). And the location of charges in that field define the electric field, just like how the location of masses define the gravitational field.

In a wire, where charges can move freely, changes drift to where they see the local field leading them, like marbles rolling down into a valley under gravity. They don't need to 'know' that there is a battery that is 10cm away to know which way to go, they just mindlessly follow the slope of the local electric field. Exactly like how water finds it's way to the outlet of a lake or dam. And as they move, their location also contributes to the electric field.  Because charges are able to freely move within the wire, and their location defines the electric field, the electric field quickly becomes flat inside conductors when modest currents are flowing. The charges are not dissipating much energy, they are "doing minimal work" in the physics sense (force x distance).

At the edges and outside of the wires, where the charges can't freely move is where all the tension in the electric field occurs - that is where the fields have the most 'slope'. It is on that slope where you can extract energy from the fields. If you release a charge on such a slope it will know which way want to go - a negative charge will head in the "most positive" direction, and a positive charge will head in the "most negative" direction. If you were able to put an extra charge into a wire not much will happen - it will just drift along on the current.

You attach one end of a resistor to a just the positive wire, but leave the other end free. A small amount of charge will flow into it, but very quickly the whole resistor will have an flat electric field, just as flat as the wire. Anywhere you measure with a voltmeter on the either resistor or the wire will measure 0V. The resistor isn't releasing any of the field's energy, just moving where the field's energy is in space.

But when you attach one end of the resistor to a positive wire. and the other end to the negative wire, then you can extract energy from the field. All the semi-mobile charges in the resistor will see the "so many volts per meter" slope of the field and start moving in that direction. Those charges don't need to know how the electric field gets there, just that the field is there, and it has to follow it. This converts electrical energy into momentum of the charge.

Because the slope in the resistor is so high compared to that inside the wire, they really want to move fast. This gives the thermal heating (or light from the light bulb). That energy isn't coming from the electrons moving in the wire, but the slope in the electric field that is through the resistor, that is what accelerates the charge.

The wire supplies a steady supply of low-energy electrons to be accelerated in the resistor, and removes the low energy electrons that appear at the resistor's other end. The charge is accelerated using the energy supplied by the field, not the wire.

All this time, (assuming resistance of the wires is low compared to the resistor the wires) the electric field on the inside of the wires is flat, and the charges in the wire only transfers minimal energy. The wires set the shape of the electric field, and supplies charge, but the energy flows in the fields.

Batteries also change the shape of the electric field. They generate (and try to maintain) an electric field between their terminals. Batteries are sold as X volt batteries. The first thing you care about for a battery is the strength of the electric field it generates between its terminals. The total energy it can supply is a secondary consideration (along with size or cost). When you connect a battery to a wire, because the wire's charges are mobile the electric field around that wire changes to match that of the battery's terminal. And sure, some charge movement is required for this, but if you could look at how much charge moved how far to build up the electric field it is minimal. (That is unless somebody has put a large capacitor in there somewhere...)