Post EMP dystopia, viability as a RPG setting?

[Luke Bunyip]

Been thinking about options for a setting in a near future dystopia. Nuclear War seems a bit of overkill, so I've been considering what an industrialised nation could look like after a war using conventional and Nonnuclear Electromagnetic Pulse (NNEMP) weapons. From my rudimentary understanding of the technology, it can be designed to target either small electronic components, or large items such as electric motors / generators and power lines.

Question: Which would be more likely to be used in a medium scale conflict? I can envisage the potential operational usefulness in targeting airports, railway sidings, container terminals, and manufacturing plants, with microwave wavelength EMPs, but would it be simpler to just wipe out power generation and transmission lines? Or, by the gripping hand, both?

I'm after something which makes large urban centres unlivable, but doesn't preclude post war limited occupation, salvaging, and scavenging. Game will be set in a remote area, without major military targets (thinking not dissimilar to Utah or Nevada).

Spoiler:  

For those of you in the Antipodes, I want to base the PCs in a fictional opal mining settlement in Central Australia, somewhere between Alice Springs and the Roxby Downs mine aka APY lands