When an electric circuit is broken, what happens to the energy in the wire?
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It doesn’t go anywhere, it’s just moving electrons. The electrons are just part of the material that makes up the circuit.
Currents oscillate similar to a jump rope in motion, the current in the circuit loses acceleration and flow through electromagnetic radiation and dissipates.
Opening an electrical circuit is like closing a valve where water is flowing under pressure. The flow stops, and so does the conversion of the potential energy in that flow into work.
The wire is either electrified or not. It’s not synonymous with a pipe filled with, say, water. In fact, when a section of grid spanning hundreds of miles is electrified by a power generation source, the whole thing is electrified at once, or least at a significant percentage of the speed of light.
The energy supplied by electricity is caused by the *flow* of the electrons. No flow, no electrical power.
There is relatively little energy actually stored within the wire. So little that it is freely moved in and out and you can’t even measure how much is being used with any but the most sensitive of devices.
What energy there is, is lost in many ways. Radio waves escaping the wire and heating of the wire are the main ones.
It’s not quite like water in a pipe. When the circuit is closed the electrons are moving around and the energy is from a field generated around the wire. When the circuit is broken then they stop and the field stops too.
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