Not to make an internal combustion engine, the one where the fuel explodes inside the cylinder, no. The characteristics of the fuel to get the right amount of vaporised fuel into the cylinder, then have it all explode and burn fast as the cylinder expands, are pretty precise. Gasoline, or lighter hydrocarbons such as gas and ethanol, or pure hydrogen, are the only ones which work in such specialised cases. If you have an external combustion engine, where a fire (or similar) generates head which is then transferred to a drive system, then you can use almost anything that can burn. Examples of such things are traditional steam engines and Stirling engines. But these tend to be heavier and much slower reacting than internal combustion engines. And people prefer liquid fuels to solid, because they don't want to stop every ten minutes to stoke the engine, and liquids are easer for machines to move around.

Uh.. No. Without going into it, there are a whole host of issues which make us use petrol, as opposed to anything else. Petrol, or 'Gas' as you Americans call it, does not only combust in your cylinders. It also has detergents in it, to keep the fine tips of your fuel injectors clean, and remove the varnish buildup that would occur without the emolients & detergents in your petrol. It also has a type of lubricant in it, to prevent your valve stems from wearing out too quickly, and to stop your valve seats from receding into your alloy cylinder head too quickly, which would otherwise see you take your car into a workshop for cylinder head overhaul much sooner than usual. Also, the fuel we use now, helps to cool combustion and the combustion chamber. Otherwise you'd get burnt exhaust valves from time to time. Some people distill their own cooking oil and make a type of crude biofuel, but in my experience thats a bad idea, because it makes a lot of carbon build up around the back of the valves and combustion chamber, and it gums and clogs up your piston rings with cooking oil goo. By all means, put anything in your tank, but when you clog up your fuel pump filter, and clog the tiny orifice nozzles on your fuel injectors, dont come running to me asking why you have to spend a big amount of money for a mechanic to pull apart your fuel system and flush the stuff out that you tried to put in your car. I've only been rebuilding engines for most of my life so far, & building high horsepower rotary racing cars for clients, so I might have it completely wrong.. Or not ;) trust me, run your car on what the sticker on the fuel cap says, or convert it to run on LPG (liquified petroleum gas), but dont stick gunpowder or anything silly in your tank. Yeah, some other things besides fuel will burn, but they dont burn with as high an energy yield (they dont put out as many BTU's per unit) as normal fuel. To burn anything else would be very inefficient as far as making engine power goes. Cars are made to run with certain air/fuel ratios for certain conditions and emissions. You go sticking something in your tank, and the ECU that controls the spark and fuel injector duty cycle wont have a hope in hell of regulating the air/fuel mixture (because you'll likely ruin your oxygen sensor) and it wont run, or it will run poorly and then have massive internal damage as a result of detonation/preignition or accelerated wear and fuel system clogging. Even paint thinners is bad, and it will run a car. It will ruin all the rubber seals and gaskets in your fuel system, and if you think about it, it really isnt cheaper per liter than pump fuel. No kerosene or paint thinners has the right detergents or emolients and lubricants to run an engine for any length of time without some kind of damage. Thats why we use gasoline to power cars. Our engines are made to run on the stuff, and its made to run our engines without causing any damage, when used correctly.

Yes and it is easy.In some countries in South America the stalks of sugar cane are used to create a sort of ethanol and used in 90% of the vehicles that were easily converted from gas.Also corn is used for ethanol is cars can be cheaply converted to use ethanol.Diesel cars have been converted to using used cooking oil from restaurants.Diesel fuel is used to start the car and once it is running a switch is used to convert to cooking oil.It is cost effective but the corrupt influence from the oil companies brainwash us into thinking it is too expensive to do these conversions.

probably not

Because the gasoline doesn't just "burn" but also serves as a lubricant and coolant in the engine.

Good bottle of bourbon!