Chemical (inorganic) fertilizers are made up of components you'd find in organic fertilizer, minus organic matter. (That's why they can burn plants if there's not enough organic matter in the soil.) It's sort of like the difference between vitamins in pill form as opposed to vitamins present in food. (Here's a decent overview: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fertilizer)
Whatever money and energy is spent producing chemical fertilizers is easily recouped by being easier to store, transport, and market. Chemicals also let you control and customize the NPK ratio (among other things) for your specific crop. You can't be certain of the chemical makeup of organics, even from one truckload to the next.
Organics have great benefits, certainly, but just aren't clean, convenient or consistent enough for most modern growers.
Okay, but where do you get those components? Don't they need the organic matter in order to chemically extract the nutrients? If not, where do they get them?