"....It seems contradictory that in the article, it also states that the urea contained in urine is a strong antibacterial."
Everything that I've read is that after 15 minutes urine begins to grow bacteria. Refrigeration doesn't help. (Your refrigerator is filled with bacteria.)
http://www.buzzle.com/articles/urine-therapy-for-weight-loss.html
How to Use Urine Therapy
"Yes, I know that this is the commonly accepted wisdom. It still doesn't answer the question: if urine has antibacterial properties, as is also commonly accepted, then why doesn't this neutralize any bacteria growing after 15 min?"
I believe you are mixing apples and oranges. You are confusing sterility with antibacterial properties. While urine is sterile, it is not antibacterial. Distilled water is sterile too but left in the open for 15 minutes it will also attract bacteria which in time will cause it to become un-drinkable.
The urinary tract can become infected and the urine passing through that tract does not heal the infection. (Talk to a female who has had one of those infections and they can be difficult to cure. Females tend to get more of these infections than males. They will often drink cranberry juice to kill their infection and a woman friend of mine found that to work very well.) One can also get bladder infections (had one as a child) and urine in the bladder does not kill that bladder infection either. If you drink your urine during either of these two infections you are also drinking the bacteria that is causing the infections.
You say that you drink your urine at night. Many folks find that drinking pee in the evenings blocks their ability to sleep. I have found that I can't drink mine after 4 pm at the very latest without it keeping me awake so end that activity by 2 pm at the latest.
When I first started UT several years ago I was using it externally and I was using two and three day old urine as recommended by some of what I was reading at that time. First off, I found no benefits from external application (I was doing this before I could stand to drink it) on my hair/dandruff and athlete's foot problem. No benefits at all. I also found that old urine stinks to high heaven and stains literally everything that it comes in contact with - even glass and porcelain. Then when I began drinking my urine I found all the benefits that topical application didn't provide so quit hanging onto the stinky stuff.
By drinking old urine you are drinking ammonia and ammonia has been a cleanser for centuries before modern cleaning methods but don't know if I'd like to ingest it.
Even though urine isn't really antibacterial you will find those who claim it is. In reading Golden Fountain by Van Der Kroon (first book I read on the subject) he was travelling in India or Southern Asia and got a bad cut on his toe/foot and it became infected. The locals had him wrap gauze around the sore and taught him to keep that gauze continuously soaked in urine and his infection went away and his sore healed up. (This is also recommended today by many who are committed to UT.) So he and others have made the claim that it is antibacterial but that doesn't explain why one can get a bladder infection that isn't cured by urine but does go away with antibiotics. So - what healed Van Der Kroon? It has to be something in the urea. Don't have the foggiest notion what it can be.