True but damn is it a lot of work. Or maybe it's less about the total work required and more like....the minimum work required.
A half-assed refinery will work fine, bottlenecks don't really matter (aside from possibly cutting power) and any waste can be AWESOME Sinked. But with nuclear, you need efficiency and a waste plan.
This isn't a criticism, by the way. I think the complication is very fair. The only thing i can think of that might make it less painful is having alternative uses for some of the single-purpose machines in the chain....not that I have any ideas of what else to use a particle accelerator for...