I'm only getting a vague idea of your thesis but I think you're missing the point. Please read the article if you haven't yet.

"You cannot get more energy out of a "system" than you put into it. How does that apply to the immense energy stored in nucear-fuel?"

Yep, you can. It's all how you look at it. Let's say there's this guy I don't like and he's building a house of cards. Once it's constructed and stable, I knock it down. I then release more energy from the system than I put in.

In the same way, the supernova that produced the uranium for fission didn't endow the material with more energy than it took to fuse the heavy nuclei. I don't really care though. I'll just use the energy contained without worrying much about what it takes to make it.

Same story with fossil fuels, which propell all these pesky cars everywhere....

The point. We're not going to be using nuclear fuel rods as a source of easily portable energy anytime soon. If there is an efficent way to convert nuclear energy to hydrogen gas, then it's a good deal for many reasons.