If you don't like nested list comprehensions, you can make use of the map function as well,
>>> from pprint import pprint
>>> l = l = [['40', '20', '10', '30'], ['20', '20', '20', '20', '20', '30', '20'], ['30', '20', '30', '50', '10', '30', '20', '20', '20'], ['100', '100'], ['100', '100', '100', '100', '100'], ['100', '100', '100', '100']]
>>> pprint(l)
[['40', '20', '10', '30'],
['20', '20', '20', '20', '20', '30', '20'],
['30', '20', '30', '50', '10', '30', '20', '20', '20'],
['100', '100'],
['100', '100', '100', '100', '100'],
['100', '100', '100', '100']]
>>> float_l = [map(float, nested_list) for nested_list in l]
>>> pprint(float_l)
[[40.0, 20.0, 10.0, 30.0],
[20.0, 20.0, 20.0, 20.0, 20.0, 30.0, 20.0],
[30.0, 20.0, 30.0, 50.0, 10.0, 30.0, 20.0, 20.0, 20.0],
[100.0, 100.0],
[100.0, 100.0, 100.0, 100.0, 100.0],
[100.0, 100.0, 100.0, 100.0]]