Growing up in River Falls, William Tuchtenhagen was not sure how far a local education could lead, but after finding a love for public speaking, it has led to a speech on one of the largest public speaking platforms, TEDx.

Tuchtenhagen was a member of the River Falls High School Class of 2019 and had no idea the places a small-town education can get someone. Growing up, Tuchtenhagen found his passion for public speaking during a high school graduation speech.

“For lack of a better term, lit a fire in me,” Tuchtenhagen said. “Then the dreamer in me was like, we’ll shoot for the stars, what’s like a big talk that you could give, having this experience.”

Tuchtenhagen was looking for more opportunities for public speaking, and one opportunity was as big as it gets. Luther College in Decorah, Iowa, where Tuchtenhagen graduated at the end of the 2023 academic year, brought back an annual TEDx event that had a multi-year absence due to COVID-19.

TEDx is a group that holds events for people to speak to put local people on the global stage. While produced independently from TED events, it follows the same guidelines of an 18-minute or less speech about a topic in areas such as technology, entertainment or design. The TEDx account on YouTube has over 38 million subscribers.

When Tuchtenhagen saw the opportunity come up, he knew his years of research on renewable energy could come into play.

“I researched the current energy crisis in Europe, wrote a 16-page paper on that,” Tuchtenhagen said. “As my senior project, basically I turned that paper into a TED Talk.”
Tuchtenhagen was selected to be one of the speakers at the event on March 11, making it his mission to show the effects and potential changes from the energy crisis.
Tuchtenhagen’s presentation was about the energy crisis in the European Union (EU), which started because Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has caused both Russia and the EU to withhold trade. With Russia no longer trading mostly non-renewable energy that made up 40% of the EU’s energy, Tuchtenhagen pointed out the EU has the chance to start fresh with more renewable energy.

The presentation featured data showing that global energy consumption has doubled from 1980 to 2020, and the EU gets 70% of its energy from fossil fuels.

“The EU has the opportunity here to change the energy market for good, shifting towards more of a green mindset,” Tuchtenhagen said during the TEDx Talk. “Renewables are not something that can be done overnight. We know that, but long-term, they truly do have the potential to fill the entire needs of the EU and more.”

Tuchtenhagen said the lack of trade between the EU and Russia has many drawbacks, including the increasing hostility between the East and the West. Tuchtenhagen believes the EU could run on nuclear power alone, but the infrastructure needs upgrades, and the nuclear waste could be damaging.

“I have a surprising amount of confidence that the shift to renewables will happen,” Tuchtenhagen said as part of the speech. “They survived the winter, that’s big you guys.”

Tuchtenhagen wants the people of River Falls and the surrounding area to know something like this is attainable with enough effort.

“I’m kind of just a guy from River Falls, you know. You don’t have to be like a super special or abnormally gifted person to do something like this,” Tuchtenhagen said. “People shouldn’t look at me as somebody who did this like untouchable, crazy thing. I think it’s certainly possible for anyone with something they’re passionate about, and a clear way to communicate that message.”

Tuchtenhagen’s speech is available on the “TEDx Talks” YouTube account with the title “Bringing About a New Global Energy Market” or by searching “TEDx Tuchtenhagen” on the search bar of the site.