It is not sound science to attribute unknown phenomena like consciousness or dark energy to other equally unknown concepts.

“it's fun headlines and good beer talk but it's not good science to take something that you don't know and explain it with something that you know even less about”

Dark energy exerts a repulsive gravitational effect that drives the accelerated expansion of the universe.

“the dark energy in the universe creates a repulsive effect on the expansions the universe is expanding things are getting farther apart because of the dark energy and that's happening at an accelerated rate”

The accelerating expansion of the universe is attributed to dark energy, although its fundamental nature is not yet understood.

“assuming that we understand enough now about what is termed dark energy that is causing the acceleration that's a separate question because we don't yet understand the nature of of the dark energy”

The universe is accelerating in its expansion, a phenomenon currently attributed to dark energy, even though the underlying physics remains poorly understood.

“We're still relying on Einstein's cosmological constant, or more generally dark energy, but we don't understand the physics of that at all.”

Dark energy is the currently dominant component of the universe and is projected to become even more influential in the future.

“and right now we think dark energy is the dominant component of the universe IE and is only going to become more dominant over time in the future”