Paul Johnson called attention to my statement that "the
energy does not go
down the wire but through the space not the wire". Paul
wrote that he had always thought that
the energy is in the field and the field is in the wire and
that is what gives the electrons their drift velocity.
Electrons are very inefficient in transporting energy; they
continually lose it in collisions with the ionic lattice.
Also because their drift speed is so slow, they can't get
the energy to where it is being dissipated in a time
interval anywhere near that which is observed.
It's the electromagnetic field that is transporting the
energy quickly and efficiently.
The energy is in the electromagnetic field (the combination
of electric and magnetic field). It is the Poynting vector
(E cross B) that describes the magnitude and direction of
the energy propagation. This vector is non-zero in the
space about the wire.
The electric field arises from the charge gradient on the
surface of the wire (as explained so well by Sherwood and
Chabey); the magnetic field from the current flowing in the
wire.