Consciousness is real. It exists at least for me when I assert that it exists. It is thus, at the very least, at those times, a thing in the universe.
Consciousness comes and goes. There must be a change in some other aspect of the universe that makes at least the first of these transitions happen. Any change that induces either transition must involve energy of some kind (although if consciousness is an emergent property more elaboration is required).
Furthermore, whatever causal role we may ascribe to it, consciousness interacts with the physical world, at the very least to the extent that the brain governs the content of experience.
We take the physical world to be made up of fundamental particles (quarks, electrons, and so on). The candidates for the mechanism whereby consciousness comes about are such as: special arrangements of physical particles and changes in those arrangements (including e.g. emergence), OR transitions in the states and energy levels of those particles, OR interactions between particles of different kinds. Interactions, transitions, or establishing particular arrangements, as well as receiving content from the brain, all involve energy (although emergence demands more elaboration). Even the collapse of a wave function in quantum entanglement involves the energy of the interaction that triggers the collapse.
Since consciousness comes about through an energetic transaction, it must at least for some time appropriate some part of that energy for itself (i.e. the energy from the interaction, process or whatever that brings it about).
While energy is transmuted to underpin consciousness it is its own distinct form of energy (available to interact with like-energies in some characteristic way).
Blakelaw posits that consciousness is a fundamental property of the universe, meaning we need look no further than this energy field, and the particles and interactions that might arise in it, for an explanation of consciousness.
After this text establishes this baseline, it goes on to explain how we arrive at the rich multi-sense, multi-feeling psychological life that we experience, including the 3D world-building that accompanies it. Which is to say, the putative homunculus (or inner eye) in our heads is rendered redundant.
