Electron current is a signal not much of a stream of electrons actually moving large distances. When lightening strikes you are seeing resistance not current so much.

So there are yet to be discovered new ways to transmit electric current neither AC nor DC. I think this notion of electrons traveling with DC is wrong. It is the electromagnetic coding that travels not the actual electrons in either AC or DC. DC may just be rotational where the electrons roll one after another instead of popping out a photon at intervals along the current line. What it means is that photon retention is the difference not the result or that AC is just more efficient at long term transmission because the rolling of electrons prevents radiation of photons that DC is in -able to do. Therefore it is possible to transmit electricity even more efficiently by generating a new kind of current that rolls electrons in a different manner. I am wondering if anyone ever has tagged specific electrons to see if they ever actually travel any substantial distance. clearly electrons are free and interchangeable with higher conductivity metals but at the speed of light they still may only move down the line a few positions. its resistance that causes electrons to jump out of the line and radiates photons. Resistance says collision to me and that means the energy can easily come from underlying momentum not from necessarily as direct energy.

"The bigger appliances in your home use a different kind of electricity called alternating current (AC). Instead of always flowing the same way, the electrons constantly reverse direction—about 50–60 times every second. Although you might think that makes it impossible for energy to be carried round a circuit, it doesn't! Take the flashlight bulb in the circuit above. With direct current, new electrons keep streaming through the filament (a thin piece of wire inside the bulb), making it heat up and give off light. With alternating current, the same old electrons whiz back and forth in the filament. You can think of them running on the spot, heating up the filament so it still makes bright light we can see. So both types of current can make the lamp work even though they flow in different ways. Most other electric appliances can also work using either direct or alternating current, though some circuits do need AC to be changed to DC (or vice versa) to work correctly".