Been doing some research on CHAMP, and it is not as dire as it may seem. If it were nuclear, we would have a different discussion. But since it uses a chemical charge to start the pulse, the E1 pulse is much weaker than a nuclear device. In fact, the use case is to take out a block of buildings while leaving the surrounding area intact.
Boeing even has an unclassified video of the effects of CHAMP test fired over a building with a room full of computers. Most of the computer go dark immediately. But there was one in the front right corner of the video that started to reboot before it went dark again.
So while weapons like CHAMP would be useful against a small target, used over a dam or other power plant would seem like a minor outage rather than a major far-reaching life changing event.
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