The only two things in the article (the Alternet one) that make sense are that 1. feedback is involved in some way and 2. for consciousness to exist whatever processing is going on has to be realized in a certain physical way. The rest is the author being confused about what energy means and turning it into his own idiosyncratic mush.
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The human brain consumes some 20% of the body’s total energy budget, despite accounting for only 2% of its mass. The brain is expensive to run. Most of the cost is incurred by neurons firing bursts of energetic difference in unthinkably complex patterns of synchrony and diversity across convoluted neural pathways.
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No. Neurons don't fire energy anywhere. That's not how they work. In an electrical cable that is used to transmit a signal, there is real energy flux along the way. In a nerve it's more like a chain of dominoes falling, except one piece takes energy away from the next one. The little energy that actually travels along the axon actually travels backwards. What counts is the signal, the information, contrary to what the author claims. Then again, actualized differences, whatever they are, may behave differently. Who can tell?