Nautilus facts and misconceptions

I was speaking with my part time co-host Ron Huber the other day about mystery power generating systems in Science Fiction. Of course I slid blithely into how mysterious Vern's power generator was in his submersible The Nautilus. Well I came upon this article on GeekendTechReplubic about just this subject. Their article starts off with the US Navy's U.S.S. Nautilus (SSN-571) which was the first nuclear powered sub for the US and the first to navigate under the north pole. Now at the time SNN-571 was being commissioned - Disney's version of Well's 20000 leagues under the sea suggested that Nemo's sub tapped into some mysterious power. Between that and the fact that SNN-571 was nuclear cemented into a whole generations mind that Vern's Nautilus was similarly powered. Not so! Verne clearly wrote that his Nautilus‘ power came from sodium/mercury batteries, the salts for which Captain Nemo distilled from seawater using conventional coal-heated furnaces. Verne’s Nautilus was revolutionary electric, rather than steam-powered, but nuclear never entered the equation. I am sure I am not alone when I thought that the navy's sub took its name from the Disney movie which took its name and power source from the Vern classic. Which vessel took its namesake from which is actually a little backward. It would seem that Disney's Nautilus was nuclear because the navy's was, not because Vern's Nautilus was....