With government money flowing and traditional industries fading, 2009 is set to be a watershed year for green business. Reuters News and Venture Capital Journal have selected five decisionmakers who will help to decide the course of technology, energy usage and climate change in the years to come.

Vinod Khosla

Founder, Khosla Ventures

Khosla grew up dreaming of being an entrepreneur, despite spending his childhood up in an Indian Army household with no business or technology connections. He eventually became a founder of Sun Microsystems and then joined legendary venture capital firm Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers.

In 2004, Khosla, driven by the need for flexibility to accommodate four teenage children and a desire to be more experimental, formed Khosla Ventures, funded entirely with family funds. His goals remain the same - work and learn from fun and knowledgeable entrepreneurs, build impactful companies through the leverage of innovation, and spend time as a partnership making a difference. He has made investments in companies working on waste water and water desalinization, solar, geothermal and cellulosic ethanol.

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• IPO VIEW-Green tech cos waiting for market to open up
• Venture capital looks to new sources of biofuels
• Khosla looking for clean energy “black swans”

Dan Reicher

Director of climate change and energy initiatives at Google.org

Reicher wants to conquer the Valley of Death — the seemingly insurmountable funding gap for unproven green technologies. The former Clinton administration Energy Department official is putting Google’s philanthropic funds behind a range of possible breakthroughs, including $10 million for geothermal, but also solar thermal and high-altitude wind power. Two early recipients of Google.org’s largesse were geothermal firms AltaRock Energy and Potter Drilling Inc.

More recently, Reicher has promoted Google’s free software that lets consumers track home electricity use and improve energy efficiency.

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• Google looking to invest in energy sector
• Lack of new power lines threatens renewable growth
• Investors take on green energy’s “Valley of Death”

Jennifer Fonstad

Managing Director, Draper Fisher Jurvetson

Fonstad’s interests span a broad set of technology and life sciences companies, including cleantech. One of the investments that helped make her #89 on the Forbes Midas List is GreenFuel Technologies, which takes carbon dioxide produced by power plants and feeds it to algae, which are then converted into biofuel. Before becoming a champion of a particular entrepreneur, Fonstad considers a number of factors in evaluating a potential investment opportunity, such as whether the company has a strong technical team with clear breakout capability, experience and a real passion for re-inventing the world.

“This means we are making bets on people first and foremost and we are making bets on our judgment about market spaces that are emerging,” she says. Forbes notes that she “once escaped kidnappers while working in Russia by jumping out of a moving car; and closed a deal while in labor with her first child.”

More:

• Forbes Midas List
• Slimed, Pt. 1: Biofuels and the Aquatic Species Program

Lyndon Rive

CEO, Solar City

Solar City was dubbed “the Swiss arms dealer” of solar installation by VentureBeat, although “Swiss army knife” might be more like it. The company sells, leases, installs and maintains solar panels for residences and small businesses, with a sideline in energy efficiency consulting. The idea is to convince geographic clusters of homes and businesses to go solar, and then reap cost savings from economies of scale.

The company’s venture background is impeccable: Rive sold an earlier software company to Dell, and Solar City is backed by Elon Musk of PayPal fame, who happens to be Rive’s cousin. And if the switch away from fossil fuels fails, and the polar ice caps melt, Rive has a hedge — he’s a member of the U.S. Underwater Hockey team.

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• Arizona Solar: Demand Is Strong but Manufacturing Needs Help
• When Is the Right Time to Buy Solar?

Matt Kistler

Wal-Mart senior vice president for sustainability

The world’s largest retailer may not have the greenest of corporate images, but its sheer size ensures that its initiatives will have an outsize impact on the global economy. Matt Kistler is the public face of Wal-Mart’s sustainability efforts, from curbing plastic bag use — aimed at cutting plastic bag waste by a third by 2013, equal to 9 billion bags a year — to reaching new fuel efficiency targets for its massive truck fleet.

The efforts of Wal-Mart and Kistler, a former marketer, are not only aimed at burnishing its corporate image and trimming costs, but also to cater to green-conscious consumers, as with its private label coffee brand, certified by Fair Trade.

More:

• Wal-Mart’s new packaging credo: Let’s get small
• Wal-Mart says will pay more for long-lasting goods

(Additional reporting by Nichola Groom)

Vinod Khosla is a card-carrying Republican. But, the billionaire venture capitalist and alternative energy entrepreneur said, Democrat Barack Obama would be better for green businesses.

“I am a Republican, but I do believe Barack Obama will be a much bigger supporter of clean tech and renewable energy than John McCain will,” Khosla said at the Reuters Global Environment Summit in San Francisco. To see a video of the interview, click here.

Khosla stopped short of saying whom he would be casting a ballot for on November 4th, but added of McCain: “Unfortunately over the election cycle he’s gotten very beholden to some of the traditional energy interests. ”

Still, Khosla said renewable energy and climate change legislation was slowly garnering support from his party, too.

“A Democratic majority would be very good for renewable energy, but  it is a bipartisan issue — there are many many Republicans who support it also,” Khosla said. “I think we are headed in the right direction. Maybe too slowly for my liking, but I think we are heading in the right direction.”

(Reporting by Ruben Ramirez)