Doing our homework on corn-based ethanol

Everyone is psyched about the prospect of using corn and making ethanol as a substitute for oil... but perhaps we're jumping the gun a bit? From the Times blog On the Table:

The way we grow corn in this country consumes tremendous quantities of fossil fuel. Corn receives more synthetic fertilizer than any other crop, and that fertilizer is made from fossil fuels — mostly
natural gas. Corn also receives more pesticide than any other crop, and most of that pesticide is made from petroleum. To plow or disc the cornfields, plant the seed, spray the corn and harvest it takes large amounts of diesel fuel, and to dry the corn after harvest requires natural gas. So by the time your “green” raw material arrives at the ethanol plant, it is already drenched in fossil fuel.
Every bushel of corn grown in America has consumed the equivalent of between a third and a half gallon of gasoline.

It ain't easy being green. But we need to do our homework before investing lots of money and resources into an alternative that sounds good on paper but contributes just as heavily to ruining the environment.