I am wondering if the energy loss in a voltage drop over an entire circuit is equal to the energy transferred from the circuit (e.g. light/sound/mechanical energy/heat).
If this is true, wouldn't that make it so that the voltage drop in a short circuit (with the power supply being a battery) would be 100% since all of the electrical energy must be converted into something else?
What is voltage drop with explanation of the example given?
I am wondering if the energy loss in a voltage drop over an entire circuit is equal to the energy transferred from the circuit (e.g. light/sound/mechanical energy/heat).
Yes. Energy is conserved. Any electrical energy that is lost by the circuit is transformed into some other kind of energy.
It is often heat, for example in a resistor or a diode.
It could be something like chemical energy, in a battery charger.
If this is true, wouldn't that make it so that the voltage drop in a short circuit would be 100% since all of the electrical energy must be converted into something else?
Yes, the energy lost from the circuit will be converted to heat. The wire forming the short circuit will heat up (because of its resistance, even though that resistance is too small to matter in more useful circuits), as will the battery (because of its internal resistance).
All of this can be understood by two equations:
\$ E = IR \$
Ohm's law
\$ P = IE \$
a combination of Ohm's law and Joule's law
To know how much heat/light/mechanical/chemical/whatever energy is being created as a consequence of the electrical energy being used, you need to know the voltage drop and current. The electrical power, as given by the product of voltage and current, is exactly the rate of energy conversion from electrical to something else.
If you consider what happens if you put an ideal short (zero resistance) across an ideal battery (perfect voltage source), you get a very different universe than the one we have. By Ohm's law, a short can't have a voltage drop:
\$ E = I\cdot0\Omega = 0A\$
But an ideal battery has always exactly the same, non-zero voltage drop. The contradiction means it's impossible. To consider why, think of what happens if you connect a resistor across a battery. As the resistor gets smaller, more current flows, and the power increases. As the resistance approaches \$0\Omega\$, power approaches \$\infty\$. Since we don't have infinite energy available to make infinite power, this can't happen.
