How far would electricity carry in the sea?

How far would electricity carry in the sea? If a toaster, connected to the mains at 240 volts was accidentally dropped into the ocean, let’s say the North Atlantic, would the sea life be electrocuted? And if so, how far and how deep from the toaster would these electrical shockwaves travel?

Seawater conducts electricity reasonably well, but not very well. It’s about a 10 millionth as good as copper. So, you will get electricity flowing through it, but it will also depend on where the other cable is because electricity always moves from one place to another place. And if the other connection to the circuit is an awful long way away, then you get very, very small currents and it’s not going to do a lot of damage. If you’ve got two contacts a foot apart and a fish swims between them then it’s almost certainly going to get electrocuted. So, I think it depends an awful lot about how you set up this test.